Consortium 1-2: Chekov's Gun Chapter 6
#17 of Consortium
Riu sits down in his chair, waiting patiently if anxiously while the Corewards seem to be assessing the situation. It's normal for them to not take any immediate actions. They're powerful enough that they can afford to not rush things and from what he's heard of them they prefer to have all the information they can gather before making any move. Meaning as soon as they came out they quickly checked to see if they were under immediate attack. And without that they've begun scanning the area as well as all of the ships, deliberating on what they want to do next. Thankfully they did not come and instantly start shooting up everything, which means there's still a decent chance they'll be able to get out of this alive. After another minute of them not taking any action one way or another he decides to go ahead and take the initiative and has his communications officer send a message to the Corewards.
"Greetings," he says over the hailing request sent to the Coreward he assumes was the first one to alter course. They arrived right next to each other at roughly the exact same time, so no way to know for certain. "I am Head Orenshii Riu, how may I be of service?"
"You were anticipating us," one of the Corewards responds a moment later. In an odd convention to the normally extremely solitary Corewards, after the Battle of Mars, when the Raeshael created the translation orbs and one of them had the audacity to ask the Consortium for their own language, the Corewards complied and even accepted a copy of the languages the Raeshael had assembled. There were rumors the Raeshael kept them up to date with the latest version. Either way, it meant that all translation programs had the main Coreward language already programmed in, making dialog much easier. "Explain."
Riu considers this for a moment or two, trying to decide how best to answer. Eventually he settles on just flat out telling the truth. "Well, this is a station that was put in place with the primary purpose of tracking the location of every Coreward and letting everyone know of such. This is done not to try and subvert the Consortium but rather so that any ship not wanting to have a confrontation with a Coreward will be forewarned and can adjust their courses accordingly. In your travels you have likely encountered plenty of ships that upon seeing you will immediately send a message out. These messages are designed specifically to track you. They are sent to the nearest Gate and then that Gate informs everyone else in the grid. We're the main station coordinating all the information with an unbiased and neutral position of informing everyone of all races of your locations. It's only reasonable, then, that when we receive reports that a Coreward has deviated from it's previous course and is heading towards us that we would have made preparations to your arrival. Since learning of your heading in our direction we've been doing everything we could to try and make sure that we don't have any Consortium Tech on our station. If you check our logs you'll find that we have had the outer ring mostly closed except for two ports since we only have two scanners checking to make sure no Tech is smuggled into our station."
"Confirmed," the message says a moment later. Apparently they were looking through their logs. "You know we're looking for Consortium Tech, why?"
"Because that is the only reason a Coreward has ever immediately altered its course. We intend on being fully compliant in your search provided you allow us a single concession. We ask merely that any ship that you have scanned and found clean is permitted to come or go safely and without any real interference. We ask that any ship unrelated to your being here is simply allowed to go about that business that is of no concern to your empire."
"Agreed," the ship says a moment later.
Riu takes a deep breath and exhales. So far, so good. Not only was he able to have a dialog with the Corewards but they are neither in the process of powering up weapons as well as agreeing to still let ships leave, so long as they've been scanned clean. When staring down the barrel of a gun, any sort of hope is appreciated. While waiting on any further information or instructions coming from the Corewards, Riu has the information spread to the civilian ships. That on the condition of submitting to the Coreward scanning them for Tech, they are free to leave the system if they are so inclined. The Gate, however, would still be off-limits. Some of the ships do make immediate use of this. The first ships to leave are the ones owned by the wealthier individuals from the various races, especially the Jhereshii. Oddly enough, despite having no real loyalty to the station, the Family haven't fled. They've boarded their ships and fled the station, but even being given the permission to leave and the fact that none of them would have anything to do with the Consortium as it'd be too dangerous for business, not a single one of their ships have made any attempt at leaving to another system. In fact all of the Family's ships are just casually orbiting around the station as if just having a meeting in orbit around the planet. Even more odd about it is the fact they seem to be the only ships that have a human captain that have stayed around. The Raeshael are also all staying, but that may be just a game of chicken between them. The only other ones that are still staying are those who had a ship or enough money to buy transport onto that ship but not enough to book passage to another location. Of course, Riu can't hold it against any of the ones that leave. They don't have any reason to risk their lives for the sake of the station. If he could have afforded it he would very much have preferred to have every civilian on the station to be evacuated and kept safe regardless of what would happen. But there are simply far too many people on the station for that to ever be a reality. So all he can do is everything he can to keep them all safe.
Mige stares at one of the windows. Ever since the Corewards arrived all the blast doors have been closed on all over the station and any of the news feeds he checks don't even mention their presence. There is a line denoting that travel for the time being is restricted and that all shuttles going to the outer ring have been suspended. He rationalizes it as an effort to try and keep the peace and prevent a panic. Seeing one Coreward can be intimidating enough for anyone. Seeing two in the same place, however. The blast doors are a measure of just out of sight, out of mind. There can be no real explanation otherwise. Mige cannot see any way in that the station and its entire fleet could actually win against a Coreward as they are now. Them showing up at the station was inevitable. It was only a matter of time before a Coreward made an appearance at this location, Mige had just hoped it would have been a bit further down the road.
"I wonder what you will do now that you've seen us. You've scanned this station in its entirety so clearly you must realize what it is. What it represents. What it will represent. With all the machinations of that squid I wonder how your kind rationalizes this station. Will you blow us up simply because of what you now know? Or will you let things continue as they must. No matter," Mige shrugs as his eyes darken slightly. "If you leave, everything continues as before. If you destroy us, then everything was all a lie anyway. Either way, it'll make no difference."
Mige stares at the closed window a bit more, half wondering if anyone walking by would find it particularly odd for him to be staring at a bulkhead. His head tilts to one side as he realizes that he's never really considered the Consortium all that threatening. Sure they could easily destroy everything he's worked so hard for at a moment's notice but at the same time they play by a specific set of rules and are fanatical about staying to those sets of rules. There's probably a whole bunch of things he could probably compare them against but the fact of the matter was, he never considered them at all threatening, just something to be handled with extreme care. Though as he thinks of it, most everyone else generally don't consider them any particular threat, just something to walk on eggshells around and otherwise avoid and ignore. The whole point of the station's creation was to provide a network to alert everyone where they are and where they're going so that they can be avoided. They're like a living natural disaster. Nowhere nearly possessing the teeth they had once held. Instead they just expand out, then patrol an area until all of the worlds break off from the Consortium and all the tech breaks down and is removed. And then they just expand further into the galaxy. In another hundred years or so the Corewards will probably be a thing in the past, having moved on from their sector, and then possibly a few millennia before they run into the main Consortium empire. It's a very strange way they do things.
But he cannot argue that it hasn't been working for them. The Fringewards show up, break off from the Consortium and declare their independence. People get used to how the Consortium is. And understand the threat of the full force of the Consortium and this is true for so long that by the time the main Consortium empire shows up everyone would be so used to them that it isn't any issue. Mige takes a moment to glance around and notes a lack of a particular individual. He had half expected that that squid or one of his many spies to be watching. And yet, they are completely absent. There are still quite a few people around, there'd simply be no way for that to not be the case. Not with how many people are on the station and how much they've closed down the outer ring. Most are just trying to go about their day and ignore the situation, assuming they'll at most come in and grab one person and leave. It is what they normally do. But that squid is absent and the only explanation Mige can come up with in response to that is they must have chosen to flee the station for safety.
"Not as observant as you let yourself be perceived, are you? Guess if push comes to shove, I can always just hold that over him, that he fled when I chose not to," Mige half laughs as he begins moving along the station's perimeter again. If there was one advantage to the situation was that it simply made his work all the easier. With the threat of the Consortium being there, the only ones that would pay him much of any attention are the ones he wants paying attention to him. He can be so very blatant about his actions and see how they react. Security is so focused on not attracting Consortium's attention that he can draw their attention so easily. And when he isn't getting their attention he can simply get by completely unimpeded. No one cares to stop him, all are either too busy ignoring the Consortium or too scared to investigate on the off-chance he has any connection with that disaster. It also makes things very easy for him to observe how everything operates in this station.
"So little Consortium, what shall it be. Shall you do what is right, or obey your own best interest?" He laughs as he floats off further into the station.
To distract herself from the current situation Cerise had gone down below decks to check on her familiar. Fana would be quite nervous now, being able to sense that something was troubling her and the fact that they moved her, but how much the blind unicorn understood where they were or what the threat was she wanted to be sure. A little stall had been set aside with some blankets for him to sit on. She goes over to him and begins brushing at his mane, doing her best to ignore the little sparks of electricity passing between them.
"Are we leaving?" Fana eventually asks. He was never particularly interested in talking, only in the love and devotion that she would give him and was perfectly patient with everything she did.
"Only for a little while, dear. We'll be back on the station soon enough and you'll be back with all your friends again."
"That's good, it was nice getting onto that place."
Cerise gives a half smile and begins to brush his mane. "Could you help me remember?"
"Sure," he says, his horn beginning to glow a faint white light.
Cerise is able to distract herself for a while with the memory of being assigned the station. She knew she had deserved it, that she was by far the best choice for the position, but at the same time she had considered it to be an annoyance that should have been passed down to someone of inferior birth to her. She was not looking forward to being sent to the middle of nowhere to babysit a bunch of inferior individuals. Never mind that it meant having to share a location with a Nogis, regardless of them being considered a war hero. And all for a mission she didn't really believe in. She was still somewhat bitter about what happened on Mars and didn't think all of the races really deserved to have all the information about Coreward positions. Let alone it'd mean having to get a system set up that all the races contributed to without any real partisanship. To have ideologically different people to agree to work together. Of course she had it in her head that the station was going to be this cramped little affair with nothing more than the station crew and the politicians. She remembers being completely awestruck by the sheer ambition of the place when she saw it, the station at the time little more than a skeleton of what it was currently.
And of course she got to meet the rest of the command staff at the time. Though only Magis, Anon and Riu remain from that original group. Her first encounter with Anon and Riu was not all that dignified as far as Anon would consider. When they went onto the station there were no politicians or civilians. There were still construction staff, but they were mainly using HAPI rigs. The command staff, however, were free to explore and see the station for themselves. And with no one there to really pose all that much of a threat, Anon and Riu had basically let their familiars do whatever they wanted so long as they did not get in the way of the construction HAPI. Anon's familiar is an extremely curious creature and had gone to check her out.
Which meant the little snakelike creature had decided to start climbing up her leg. Cerise was outraged and was threatening to smash the creature into a wall. Anon had rushed in and was unabashedly apologetic about the situation. But even as upset as she was she started to notice a similarity between Anon and Riu. While all this was going on Riu was laughing his head off and Anon was more annoyed at her familiar for climbing up anyone's leg, not that it was her specifically. Riu introduced himself and his familiar. Anon very casually introduced herself as well, more intent on admonishing her familiar, before just letting it go off on its own again once it promised not to do that again. Neither one paid her any special attention for being Myobu. Riu, if anything, seemed more interested in her familiar than what she was, and spent much of the time clarifying what he had been told of her experience. It was the first time in her entire life that she was interacting with people of her own species that they didn't care one bit about what she was. All they cared about was how good was she at her job. Even more so, she had expected Anon to behave in a deplorable manner as she had been raised for how the Nogits usually behave. Instead she found someone who seemed more interested in spoiling her familiar and doing her job, her status as a Nogits was more an annoyance whenever it was brought up. And then later when the politicians started showing up she once again was put into the situation that not a single one of the non-mythics races cared her fur was white. All they saw was she could be doing for them. As the one in charge of all of the politicians, if any of them wanted anything she was the one they went to. And with all of that she was actually starting to feel like she truly belonged somewhere.
The light of her unicorn fades and she's brought back into the present. She felt like she belonged here, where the people expected her to perform her duty and fully accepted her for her role in their lives without any restraint for her being Myobu. And now she was potentially going to have all that taken away from her at the hands of the Consortium. And there's nothing she can do about it. She leans forward and hugs the neck of her familiar for a moment, just trying to calm herself back down a bit more. Being agitated would be one of the last things she'd want in her current position.