Quoted By:
“Know that I am willing to relinquish…”
“There is no answer to your question…” I interrupted. “…because you do not comprehend what you are asking for.”
I waited for a few seconds, watching those glossy-black eye-pits sway forward with inquisitive confusion. I waited until I was certain I held its unrivaled attention.
“Defiance is a rejection of compromise, a rejection of surrender. Defiance itself is the goal.”
“Know that such an idea is thoughtless…”
“Yet it has carried me here, to entrance of your birth-world.” I responded.
“…Know that I would have never begged. Not for my own life, or the life of my species. I would have never negotiated, never communicated, never considered what I could offer my enemy in exchange for my own benefit.”
“And I would have never found myself in your position, seeking answers from the species who would bring the end of my kind.”
My counterpart blinks twice. A pale nictating membrane swipes across its eyes.
“Then why did you spare my ship/lineage at all?”
“Why did you not destroy our vessel when we left our home-world?”
> HOPE. “Our defiance is no longer directed at you, at least not entirely”
> NAIVITY. “A mistake.”
> TAKE. “You had something to give us then. And you still have something to give us now.” [Relinquish comm control to MERRYGATE, who has spent the past ten minutes breaching the transport’s remaining systems]
> DISCONNECT. End the interaction.
