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A few minutes later Cerise shrugs and walks into the assembly hall for the council. Beyond being a forum for all things going on in their known part of the galaxy and a way to broker discussion in a neutral environment, the primary purpose of this room, the entire station even, is for the defense of everyone. Everyone in here has donated ships in their pledge to encourage this, with the intent if there is an issue, the station will send its resources to come to their aid. Most of the delegates are, thus, politicians. In this room, most of the delegates are positioned close to others of the same race. There are the Jhereshi, an aquatic, almost squid-like race and probably the most advanced of everyone here. There are the Habenceun, a tauric race that seem to have a very uncanny ability to know what's going to happen unless they wear their special helmets, the human delegation, though the vast majority of those are away for their elections. The Raeshael, who almost resemble green, furless cats but without the muzzles. And the three factions of that race have to be kept in three different parts of the room. And then the Fringe worlds, colonies from the Consortium that have broken off and declared independence. Showing that the Consortium is a large collection of a ton of different races they've assimilated in their expansion, very few of the Fringe worlds delegates are of the same species. But they tend to simply all agree to work together based on similar situation.

The vast majority of the station business deals with major issues regarding the races in general. Especially in regards to the last known sighting and heading of any Coreward ship, so that all the assembled races can pass this information off and avoid any unnecessary hostilities with the Consortium. The ships in orbit around the station are first for station defense, and second to deal with independent threats to the assembled races. This involves hostile activities between one planet and another, rogue forces like bandits and other lawless groups and to help facilitate peace between everyone. If a planet wants protection or use of the ships then they can as for it. And Cerise's primary duty is to moderate these meetings, to keep them from getting out of control. So for her to call everyone means they know that either a massive threat needs to be addressed, or as is the current case, that there is a threat to the station itself that they need to be made aware of.

Naturally as this is also the best means for the races and planets within the races to set up deals and other agreements the entire room is talking quietly amongst themselves. But the room starts to quiet down considerably once Cerise actually enters the room. As many of the various races enjoy an air composition that is vastly different than what Cerise and her kind are used to, the vast majority of the delegates are communing through HAPI's and only a few individuals are actually here in person, the latter is somewhat more surprising than the former. Considering how short notice she gave everyone she expected only one or two to actually show up. For a small fraction of them to show up means that they were already partly aware of the situation before she called and showed up expecting her to make a statement eventually. There's even a Jhereshii in attendance, as well as a single human. Though it is something that Cerise has always found odd that even when talking via HAPI, the Jhereshii will still always be in their encounter suits, however unnecessary that it truly would be. All the other humans are either away for their elections or are there via HAPI. Most are from her own kind.

"We heard that there is a ship parked in orbit of the station with an armed bomb on board, are we to evacuate to the planet?" one of the Raeshael diplomats from the Reija party asks before she can even fully address the others.

"You moron," one of the other Raeshael diplomates retorts, this one from the Jilst party. "If they have any sort of intelligence about them then they'll be watching the ship bays and detonate the moment we try to evacuate."

"There will be no need to evacuate at all, will there?" the leader of the Jhereshi delegates asks, his encounter suit making a slow gesture. Of all of them, this is almost the only one to have bothered to show up in person. All the others have decided to attend by way of HAPI in the event they need to start packing things up quickly.

Cerise sighs, knowing that in this particular case they seem to be all the more argumentative. Though at least with the vast majority of the human delegates currently absent in order to deal with their internal elections there isn't as much of trying to shift blame for the situation.

"There will not be any evacuation. Further, for clarification, the bomb on the ship is an anti-matter bomb so evacuation wouldn't make much of a difference anyway."

"Ah, that's fine then," One of the habenceun delegates state. "Here I thought that we were actually in trouble. Guess this would be a good opportunity to find out if all the resources that have been devoted to station defense and everything has gone to waste. So, little fox, you all are on the clock. Do not disappoint us."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence," She says in a dry manner.

"Is there any instructions that need to be sent to our constituents on the station?" a kitsune delegate asks, the one delegate that always makes an effort to show up in person whenever possible. Cerise smiles slightly at seeing him.

"No, there shouldn't be any cause for concern. Naturally for everyone's safety we will be closing all access to the outer ring and evacuating everyone into the inner ring. If you want to make an apology to anyone that had been planning on leaving in the next little while you can go ahead and do that. Beyond that, any qualified and capable Sym mage is more than welcome in coming to the edge of the inner ring and help to bolster the station's shield. It shouldn't be necessary. The station's defenses should already be more than enough to protect us from the level of destructive force that the terrorists would be able to exert. But that said, I also know that there are those people who can't sit idly by doing nothing when they could be helping and it's not like making our shields even stronger is going to hurt the situation."

"So what is the current plan of action for the station? Have they made any demands?" one of the few humans ask.

"There have been demands made and the Circle has conferred and come up with an appropriate course of action. Unfortunately I am unable to discuss the particulars at this time. I hope you all understand."

There are, naturally enough, more questions posed at her, but Cerise half turns her mind off to them, going more and more into just the default responses. Of course they'd want to ask questions to try and get more information than she's allowed to give, but she's far too practiced at this kind of thing to fall for it. There's a reason she was picked for this particular job. She's had more experience in politics and appropriate sharing of sensitive information than many of the people here have been alive. Only her own kind can compete with that argument, and possibly the Jhereshii as they don't tend to disclose just how long their race can actually live. Probably similarly long all things considered. Most of the more seasoned politicians simply accept pretty quickly that they aren't getting anything more and then either leave or go back to whatever discussion with the other politicians that they would have been doing anyway. The human delegate that had asked the question earlier has immediately rushed off and is calling someone or other. The Language of Intent spell isn't used here. It can be in the case of an emergency, but is often not needed and would backfire as it would prevent anyone talking via HAPI from understanding anyone. There are special orbs set in place just for this particular room, speeding up conversations. Each chair is already noted and set into each of the other orbs directories. Thus when one talks, the others are alerted of which is talking and immediately knows which language to translate it. It wasn't always as nice as this, but they've had time to perfect it. Once she was reasonably sure that there would be no more meaningful questions, Cerise excused herself from the meeting, to head off for other duties.

As Cerise steps out of the chambers she hears a voice call out to her from down the hall. Even without having to turn she knows who it is. Outwardly the incoming figure looks no different than any other Jhereshii, though most who know him know better.

"Greetings, Lady Cerise. Might I have a word?" the Jhereshii asks.

"Hello Ret, what do you want today?" Cerise asks as politely as she can to the former politician. He was the first head of the Jhereshii delegation, the very first Jhereshii on the station, before even her and the other heads of the station. But that was his right as he was one of the main contributing factors to get his race to help fund the station. But since then he had retired, or at least that's what he claimed.

"I have heard the most disturbing news that there is a ship threatening to destroy the entire station. Is that correct?" He asks.

"Yes, Ret, that is correct. There is nothing for you to concern yourself. We have everything under control."

"Then I take that to mean that the Shadows are being implemented to handle the threat?" He asks.

Cerise stops and stares at him a moment. They had only just gotten around to making the decision. That Ret knew of the shadows was no surprise. He was always looking into everything. That he would know that this was the course of action they were doing meant he either knew who the leader of the Shadows was, or had fed Magis the idea to pose to the council. Either was possible with Ret.

"Why do you always ask questions you already know the answer to? What could possibly be the point?"

"My dear," Ret begins, "a model is only as accurate as the information that is provided. In order for me to know everything and be able to know what is going on, it is required to periodically check and ascertain the accuracy of my statements."

"Well, then. You would also know then that as you are not a part of the command staff I cannot inform you of the actions of the Shadows or even what plans we are setting in motion."

"Of course," Ret bows and turns to follow Cerise in the direction she'd be heading to anyway. "As I said, accuracy is important. I find it very beneficial to pay attention to everything that goes on."

"I'm sure you do," Cerise says dryly. "Just as I'm sure you and your spies are constantly writing down everything any of us eat for every meal. You know, for accuracy."

"I do understand the need for privacy as I respect those that give me my own privacy when desired. So I will give you every assurance that I do not keep track of every detail of your lives, only what is involved with running the station," Ret says, seemingly offended by the accusation. "That said, I have to wonder about the fact that this terrorist organization chose now of all times to make an appearance, what with most of the human delegates currently off-station."

"You know as well as I do that they undergo elections from time to time and swap out delegates as the need arises. They'll be back by the end of the month. The timing may seem convenient, but we can't simply jump to conclusions and say that the human government would try and destroy this station out of the blue and stage it to look like a terrorist incident. There simply is no benefit for them to do so."

"I suppose, though don't hold it against me if I hold my models to be more reliable in this particular instance than your testimony on their behalf. But for the time being I have said my peace and gotten the information that I wanted. Have a nice day, Lady Cerise," Ret bows slightly and then starts walking off, leaving Cerise standing there for a moment trying to piece together what was Ret's true purpose to that particular meeting.