FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"I'm sorry, but those are our conditions," Riu says over the encrypted channel with the rogue ship. He had tried to delay things as long as possible but there was only so much he could do. "You will give us time to evacuate the outer ring of any bystanders. Then you may send a single shuttle to the specified location. Our systems track the location of every individual that is on the station. I am willing, if you are permitting us to evacuate to give you a link that would tell you her exact location at any given time. Once everyone is clear we will send her over to you, unarmed, but unbound. If you want your trial there you may. Else she has agreed to go with you on the basis of proving that she has committed any crime."

"Honestly it'd be just so much easier if you went and put her on a shuttle and sent her to us, then you wouldn't have to deal with all this unnecessary drivel," their leader complained.

"Yes, but the problem is in getting her to you. You see per station charter we are not allowed under any circumstances to steal an unaffiliated ship against that ship captain's wishes, least of all to place it further into harm's way towards an antimatter bomb. Now we could put her in a warship, one that is full of soldiers and have that one board with you in order to make the handoff. Or alternatively, she can fly to you in her modified fighter," Riu makes sure to stress the fact that it has been modified. "But then you have the issue of someone with no real incentive to surrender themselves to be executed in a combat ready vessel that could even go light speed if she so desired and there'd be nothing we can do to stop her."

Riu stops for a moment, letting his words sink in more fully. "Or," he says after giving a small pause, "you could give us the time to evacuate the outer ring so that you can land your own shuttle with all the means and guarantees you need to make sure we're not trying to pull something over on you. Then when you're satisfied we'll send her right out to you. Prove a trial is warranted and then you can secure her into your own shuttle however tightly you want without any risk of her getting away. And if you think that we are going to double-cross you, you still have your big bomb to threaten us with."

Riu lets the human have time to think. There's no need to try and pressure him into making any decision. He needs to make this seem like he's being as reasonable as possible while also having very few options available. In all practicality there are numerous ways that would minimize the risk of harming anyone and getting them what they wanted as quickly as possible. For instance they could insist that she commandeer one of the shuttles going from the station proper to the outer ring. Putting her on her way to them in an unarmed, unshielded vessel. But that would end things too quickly and he doesn't really want to just hand her over to terrorists, that would send the wrong kind of message. What he needs is to guide them on what seems like the most reasonable course of action that just happens to eat as much time as possible. He's not all that practiced in the art of misdirection, but he at least understands the principle behind it. And forcing him to come onto the station to deal with her here would also serve to keep their eyes away from the Shadows heading over.

"Fine," he says eventually, though clearly not entirely enjoying the concept of flying out of his ship over to where the station. "But if I see anything suspicious I won't hesitate to blow up everyone around here."

"Of course," Riu responds, bowing slightly to the human for emphasis, "I wouldn't have it any other way. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go about trying to evacuate the outer ring for you. We'll be sure to let you know as soon as that is done so that you can make your way over to us. And to further put you at ease, we will be instructing any of the other ships at that part of the ring to disperse to other parts of the station so that you won't think that we're trying to pressure you in any way." Riu then disconnects the call and then goes about making sure that everyone knows what the situation is and that the plan is currently all going according to plan so far. And unfortunately enough, this is as much as Riu is able to contribute to this situation. Success or fail past this point lies exclusively at the hands of other people. He just hopes everything else goes according to plan.

Anon certainly had doubts about the plan, though part of it might just been the fact that it required her to put herself in such harm's way for as long as possible. Scans of the terrorist's shuttle confirmed that the person coming aboard also had an anti-matter bomb, though this one isn't nearly as power. Still would be more than powerful enough to kill her if he detonated it right away. Thankfully she has had training in how to diffuse such a bomb already as the principle is quite simple. Just in case, however, she instructs Mia to stay behind in the transfer shuttle. She fully expects them to try and kill her right away without any means for her to defend herself. But hopefully, they try and do it in a way that would keep them alive if it succeeds. She can probably stop any spell a human could cast and most weapons, but she highly doubts that she could truly protect herself fully from an anti-matter explosion at this range. As a result she focuses and builds her barriers as strong as she can make them, also making sure to keep her hand on the guide rail as she exits the shuttle. There's an extra feature to these rails that is available to her that most who don't know how her kind builds things wouldn't know about. A feature that will be extremely useful for her while trying to go about being as discrete as she possibly can during the circumstances.

The moment she comes into view she can hear the sound going off in her direction. She can also feel that it did hit her barrier though didn't really do any good beyond that. She turns and frowns at him, crossing her arms in front of her while also leaning back against the railing.

"Was that really necessary?" She asks, inwardly knowing that in all likelihood the attack could have been more to make sure she wasn't a decoy or a hologram or something. Only someone really there can block an attack with magic and only those trained in magic can do so. There was a practical side to attacking her, doesn't change the fact that she can complain about it. He makes a comment she doesn't quite understand and she uncrosses her arms enough to point at the orb strapped to her waist.

The human looks, grumbles a bit and then sighs before starting to calibrate himself to her orb. Technically it wouldn't necessarily be required. They could have easily just downloaded his language setting into her device on the way here, or set up a Language of Intent translator, though that would cause issues. There's a whole bunch of ways to make communication faster. But faster is not what they want. They want to delay as long as possible and forcing the human to go through the entire process of getting his language locked in. She even had the volume set low at first so that it wouldn't pick him up from way over there. Forcing him to count off again after she makes a quick gesture of apology and dialing up the volume. All the while she's spending this time trying to get a feel for where his bomb is, where the antimatter is and setting up her barricades on his bomb as subtly as possible.

"Was that really necessary for you to shoot me?" she repeats once the device has finally been calibrated.

"Needed to make sure that it was really you," he says before throwing a pair of binding cuffs in her direction. "Now put those on."

"About that," Anon starts, noting how for the time being he isn't willing to get at all close to her, which she finds is slightly strange considering how as far as he is aware he has the upper hand. Either way she makes a slow deliberate motion of pushing herself off the rail and starts walking forward, keeping her tails in contact with the rail as long as possible. He raises his gun again, aiming at her for the approach. Sighing she raises up her hands and backs off to lean against the rail again, which is what she ideally wants to be doing anyway. She flicks a finger and the cuffs start to instead slowly slide their way in her direction. Granted his gun can't harm her anyway, but it is good to set his mind at east by getting the cuffs to her slowly rather than simply flying them right into her hands like she very easily could. Once they are close enough to do so she reaches out with a foot and starts to lift it up and then picks it up into her hand. She gives it a very scrutinizing look, assessing how powerful they are and how much magic she'd still have access to if she were to put them on. "What's to stop you from simply shooting me again the moment I put these on? It seems hardly in my best interest to take away my only protection when I've been promised a trial. Can't have a trial if your main suspect is already dead. Or at least there isn't really any point in it."

"You'll just have to trust me," he says flatly. "Now put them on."

She's managed to start the process of disarming his bomb, which is definitely difficult work and would be obvious at this point if she were to leave the railing. Sym magic requires energy, from electricity or from the air. The railing allows any authorized user to draw power from the rail to do Sym magic without having to draw from the air.

"Says the guy who has already shot me once already. No, I don't think so," she says, letting him stew a bit after the translation goes through. "How about this as a compromise. You throw your gun away, far enough that you can't easily grab it again. Show me that you aren't just hiding another gun on your person and just have the bomb to threaten me with. DO that and I'll put your cuffs on."

He is certainly not pleased with her compromise, but can't seem to really argue with her logic. He probably was more than a little tempted to try and just shoot her the moment the cuffs were on. But he makes an elaborate gesture of throwing the gun casually to the side, still far closer to him than to me, which doesn't mean much. He then goes about doing a slow little turn showing no other obvious guns on his person. He probably would still have one hidden somewhere on him, given the type.

"Happy? Now put them on," he order, taking out the detonator to his bomb so that he has something to hold on to. Thankfully he doesn't have his finger on the switch, or has even really turned the safety off on the switch. She easily could just create a barrier prevent him from being able to push the button but that would mean if the ship was watching or listening in they could detonate their bomb early, and that isn't what she wants. So she takes the cuffs and goes about showing him that she's putting them on, even giving him the satisfaction of a little click and shakes them around a bit for further emphasis that they are on tight, or so he would believe. The reality is that she created a small little barrier with Sym magic right along the contact point of the cuffs. They look closed enough from a distance but come up close and it'd be obvious they aren't. The only reason they don't fall off is she's holding them in place. The effect of them will still affect her magic a little bit, but it wouldn't shut them down completely and she can with a simple gesture remove them completely if needed. There's a reason why whenever her people go to put cuffs on someone they are taught to actually check and make sure that they are on tight and to ideally put them on themselves.

"Now get over here," he says, significantly more relaxed now that he feels that he's gotten everything he's wanted up to this point.

"Not quite yet. There's something that needs to be addressed first," Anon comments back, crossing her arms over her chest in an exaggerated act of defiance.

"And that is? If you are trying to set up a trap I will destroy this station and everyone on it," he gestures wildly, especially with the hand currently holding the detonator. Thankfully he still hasn't disengaged the safety on the device.

"No, no," she raises her hands back up in a show of submission, though she doesn't move an inch from the wall and is doing everything she can to try and get at slowly diffusing that bomb. "It's a simple matter of legality to address before I can be handed off. You see, I'm sure you're aware of that Alkolen Agreement, the charter that every single planet has signed off on, correct?"

"Yeah, what of it?" he says, though Anon strongly suspects that other than the most cursory understanding of it that he has no clue what all is in the agreement.

"Well there is a provision in the charter that says, quite simply, that no one is allowed to be tried for a crime that has not been committed. So, it's simply the matter that in order for me to be allowed to be handed over to be put on trial there must first be proof that a crime has been committed in the first place." She had half a mind to try and rattle off something like the exact wording of that part of the agreement, but decided that it ultimately wouldn't have done her any good other than to show off.

"What are you talking about? You're a war criminal, being charged on war crimes. Of course, there are crimes against you."

"Yes, but what are they? If you can prove to me I've committed a single, specific war crime then I'll go with you."

The man is clearly flustered by the statement and after a moment or two sputters a response. "It's not my job to list off your crimes, the prosecutor knows full well all of your crimes and all of the necessary evidence needed to convict you. My job is simply to collect you and escort you to trial."

"Then go ahead and call over your prosecutor and he can go ahead and list off the crimes that I have for certain committed, thus making me eligible to be taken under custody for your trial."

"I'm not going to simply let you stall this out indefinitely. If I send for him you'll just have one of your corrupt guards assassinate him under some false pretense then insist you can't be tried without a prosecutor."

"Perhaps, perhaps not. But then the Alkolen Agreement never makes any mention of needing a prosecutor for there to be a trial. If anything, a prosecutor is just about the only thing not required to have a trial. For a trial you need the defendant, someone to defend them if possible, a crime to have been committed that they can be tried for and a judge or jury to decide the verdict. So really, killing your prosecutor really wouldn't have any relevance to whether or not I could be allowed to go with you to stand trial. So by all means, send him over," The statement is certainly a gamble. If he does send one over it provides a risk they might find out about the Shadows, but if it succeeded would also mean a further delay, making it all the easier for her to stall for enough time. But it would likely make him start pacing which would make it harder to diffuse his bomb.

"It doesn't change the fact that it would be only stalling. And this is not to be a negotiation. Need I remind you that our ship is a bomb just waiting for the opportunity to destroy your precious station if you do not come with me? Now get over here!"

"Tell you what, if you're so sure that I am a war criminal, surely you can think of one off the top of your head. Just give me one war crime I am specifically responsible for and I'll put these on and go with you."

"You are personally responsible for making billions of people homeless following the civil war?"

"Am I, though? Is there evidence of me going out of my way to physically destroy or otherwise kick out a single person? If you're talking about the result of the civil war, did I single handedly win the war?"

"If it wasn't for your act of insubordination there would not have been any civil war, nor would your kind have won it."

"That act of insubordination was the result of deciding that it was more important to try and escort innocent civilians to safety, to help save as many people as possible rather than sacrifice every single one of our ships against a force we had no right to fight anyway, all so that the very people that started the war would have the opportunity to back off to pick a fight again over Earth as well. They were military. They knew the risks, the civilians had not signed up for that. And given such a situation, if it happened again I would do it again. Because I'm sorry, given the option of protecting a controlled retreat versus protecting fleeing citizens I'm going to protect the citizens every single time. If your war ships were so keen on surviving, they would not have fired on the Coreward in the first place, let alone keep firing when we abandoned them. The Coreward left us alone as soon as it realized what our ships were doing."

"You're just saying that as an excuse for your behavior and holding Mars as an insignificant chunk of rock."

"My family was on Mars!" Anon exclaims. "They weren't wealthy enough to get into the ships so they hid down in the subterranean cities. They were still on the planet when it went. I gave up on that fight because there was no way that we were going to have any chance of stopping a Coreward, we simply didn't have the firepower or the ships. If anything if we kept fighting they may have taken Earth as well. Now granted no one knew that they intended to destroy the planet, we just assumed they would just destroy the colony, maybe make the entire thing uninhabitable, thus why we didn't commit as much to evacuating everyone. My parents were on Mars. I was fighting that battle to try and keep them safe. Can you honestly say that I would have stopped fighting if we could have beaten them?"

The human looks taken aback by her statements, making Anon wonder if perhaps she had gone too far with that and he's quickly about to go and blow himself up for her insulting him. But for the most part him thinking about the situation is good. The longer they aren't trying to blow up the station the better as it gives them more time to disarm all the bombs.