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A few hours later Riu steps into the chamber for the council and awaits for the rest to show up via HAPI. Anon had called every single member of the council, though had listed it as non-urgent. Already some of the members are asking him what the meeting is about, though he wasn't really informed of it either. It was actually somewhat uncharacteristic of her to approach things in this manner. Normally she was very straight to the point, taking advantage of the fact her position required a certain degree of transparency by just walking up to whoever she needed to talk to and talk to them directly. To arrange a private meeting of the council and not tell any of them what the meeting was about was strange. Eventually, Anon comes into the council chamber as well and then seeing that most are there begins to speak.

"I'd like to thank everyone for showing up. I don't really know what to consider this. But it is something worth bringing up with the council to decide how credible the information is and what we should do about it. If it was from any other source I'd be trying to deal with it internally, but the information is coming from Ret, but not in a way he usually uses. As Majis can attest, one of our fighters was approached by Ret earlier today. I have had the person questioned as well to verify the details of the story. But during his run-in with Ret a message was delivered. Not explicitly to him, of course, but the person he was with. And the message was warning of a potential attack. So there it is, we have a potential warning coming from Ret given not to any of the council but rather someone working on the station in another department."

"What was the message?" Carol asks.

"A shipment of," Anon pauses, trying to figure out how to say it, "the Habenceun word for nothingness is coming from Raeshael space in a few days."

"Did he actually use our word?" Toreselia asks.

"From my understanding they were using the Language of Intent at the time, and that was the word the pilot said was said. Again, this is a very round about way for Ret to be doing things, thus why I'm not labeling it as urgent. I don't know if there's anything actually coming or not. I'm planning on asking the Family later if they know anything but felt it best to bring it up here first."

"Well I can definitely keep an eye out and have all the Raeshael ships scanned in the immediate future just in case. That shouldn't cause any problems. Beyond that, we're going to need some more actionable evidence. I'd advice mobilizing the Shadows as well, they'll probably be far more effective at getting information than the Guardians, no offense," Toreselia says, to which Anon just shrugs.

"Agreed," Riu says. "I shall make sure that that is done. There is also the fact that if there is a shipment coming in that there will be some sort of paper trail. Even if it isn't a scheduled shipment, unless it's a weapon being smuggled there should be someone expecting the shipment and we can track them from that. That'll be for the Shadows. Cerise can ask the Raeshael if they know if anything has come in."

"What I want to know is why would Ret be going around this in such a roundabout manner?" Carol asks.

"I have no idea," Anon shrugs, "but that's why I didn't give any information about what the meeting was going to be about. I don't know what motives Ret has from giving us this information in this matter if it does turn out to be accurate. So I'm going under the assumption that his normal contacts are being monitored. That either he has detected someone watching us to see if the plot gets out or someone is watching what he is doing. I'm already going about doing a diagnostic on the communications array to see if our communications network has been compromised. But until that diagnostic is complete I didn't think it was a good idea to discuss the topic of conversation over something that might be compromised. This room, however, is constantly being checked and managed to prevent any such spying procedures. Not even Ret could listen in to these meetings. He'll still find out afterwards but he wouldn't hear what was said."

"At the very least we have a fairly good idea about what course of action we need to do for the immediate future. We have a few days before this shipment apparently arrives. So for now, just gathering information is all we need to do. If we can get information saying that the information is genuine or false then we can act on that. Until then we have no more issue of this particular meeting. Unless anyone else has something that they feel they need to address," Riu says, and when no one makes a response nods to Anon and then leaves the chamber. For the most part there really isn't all that much for him to do about it anyway. Though he'd like to be more proactive, he simply has nothing to do to get the information. And so he decides best to return to the bridge and carry out his duty like normal.

The next day, Cerise waits in her usual location and listens only passively as the diplomats talk amongst themselves. There wasn't any real order of business for today but it was always a good idea to have regular sessions. And as there isn't anything truly pertinent to bring up with the entire delegation the white kitsune's only real duty in this session is to just moderate and keep the peace. Which of course means that there are days where she doesn't really have much that she is expected to do anyway. Half of the politicians aren't even talking with the general assembly, but rather using their HAPI's to connect for some semi-private conversations. Which wouldn't be so obvious if it weren't for the fact that the Raeshael's paranoia made it so that the council implemented a policy that any private conversation is not allowed to be done wirelessly. But rather via a connection port on the HAPI. So when she sees two of them touch it's pretty obvious to everyone what all is going on. Very few, like usual make their way to the actual chambers. If it wasn't against policy she'd probably be here via HAPI too. But this is technically her office and if nothing else she needs to be able to ensure the safety of anyone physically here.

So for the time being she lets her mind wander to the warning from the meeting the previous day. She has no clue what it is that Ret is trying to do. She had already petitioned the Raeshael leaders to have a conversation with her later on when they get the chance, but none of them seem to be acting at all strangely. Not that it means too much, there is no indication that it is coming from any of them directly. But still, every single one of them is operating under the sense of everything being business as usual. Which makes her wonder if they're being led on a sort of wild goose chase. After all, it isn't like Ret to go through an intermediary. If he had a message to deliver, he'd simply do so. That he hasn't meant that he either feels that by doing so would jeopardize the station or that it really doesn't mean anything. And the fact that she can't figure out which is the likely answer bugs her.

"So how are you doing?" Anyol asks, bringing her out of her thoughts. "Is your magic still acting up?"

"No, it's fine," Cerise smiles at him politely. "It became fully back to normal a week ago. No more flare ups in sight."

"Well that's good. I would definitely hate it if you accidentally blew up the station from that. And that didn't come out the way I intended," he quickly backtracks his last statement.

"It's fine, Anyol. Don't worry about it." She gestures dismissively. The fact was something like that was something on her mind for a while and she had actually requested a pair of the gold gauntlets to use for a little while until it got back under control. Naturally she kept the key with her. And had to sign off on having it since it could be seen as a liability if it were misused in any way. But with them on she could be sure that she would not cause anyone any trouble while it corrected itself. Though she also made a regular point of keeping herself drained, which her familiar was certainly concerned about. But at least the crisis had passed. "How about you? How are you holding up?"

"Oh, I'm doing fine," he says, rubbing at the back of his head for a moment, his ears pinned fully back to show just how awkward he is feeling at the moment. "To be honest I'm going to miss the quiet."

Cerise gives him a look in response to that since there is still a lot of conversations going on. He shrugs and continues, turning to look out at the rest of the assembly. "The humans are coming back next month. Their elections have finished up." He leans back a bit against the front of the podium, the four tails parting themselves aside so that he isn't pinching them in the process. "I've already heard reports from around the borders that it's not to be easy going for us. Most of the ones that made a point of going out of their way to still work with us just to get what they want were replaced by a party of human-first loyalists."

"We've had people like that here in the past," Cerise shrugs. "People who think that they'll be able to just come in and get everything for their own people and everyone else would just do what they want. But then they show up, put up a fuss for a little while and learn they aren't a big fish as far as the politicians here are concerned. That none of the other systems represented here are willing to just give anyone what they want because they want it. And eventually they just stay stubborn and get eventually replaced again for not being able to accomplish anything or they change their tune and actually start working with the other politicians. They're used to the politics of a planet, where everyone will rally behind a few parties and one has the majority and can do what they want. But here, no one really has such power. I mean each race does have its lead representative and can rally behind everyone else in their own empire. But there are six peoples represented here. It doesn't really matter if every single human representative rallies behind this human-first thing, all they'll find is that the only ones willing to really deal with them are the other humans and that they'll still have no power to really do much of anything in the grander scheme of things."

"We'll have to see. But it hasn't ever happened on this scale before. It's quite likely that we'll be with the vast majority of the human systems all under the mindset of their human-first initiative. And to have one group all speak with one voice, the only other group that could really compete on that level would be the Jhereshii."

"Except of course that there really isn't all that much power in trying to speak with one voice. We are a convenience in here, Anyol. Even having every single delegate of one mind doesn't really have that much say in regards to what is done. They don't really get any say in what the fleet does and would not change the primary purpose of this station. The worst case scenario, and the only one that would have any real influence on the station and galaxy as a whole is if enough of them threatened to pull their ships from the fleet. Enough of them do that and we lose our effectiveness. But beyond that one group being selfish would not have any real authority to do much of anything. It's not like they'd gain the ability to authorize us letting them expand their borders.