“Well, I’m sure everyone watching shares those sentiments. Runa has always adhered stringently to the Accord, even when others haven’t.” The anchor smiled, but there was something in his tone that, having watched her fair share of news channels, Quinn might have picked up on quite quickly. A political angle that made the trajectory of the conversation clear. “There are already reports coming in from certain Casobani and Euseran sources claiming that your fellow pilot, miss St. Senn, may be somewhat to blame for the loss of [i]Chateau[/i]. 

“Of course, I and I’m sure every level-headed person watching can agree that’s ridiculous. [i]Dragon[/i]’s efforts up until we lost video feed were as astounding as ever, and frankly, we don’t believe the ESC has any place to cast aspersions on what happened today. As someone who works closely and often with miss St. Senn, do you believe there’s any justification to the claims that she abided [i]Chateau[/i]’s loss, intentionally or otherwise?”

Even if she’d have been able to see it coming, the topic swerved into political unrest so quickly, how could she possibly have avoided it? She hadn’t been back an hour, and already there were people trying to tear down what RISC had done.

Besca stood aside, frowning. For all the work the pilots did in defending Illun, they were weapons foremostly on the international stage. Hammers with which to bludgeon home certain stances, and savagely beat away others. There was no winning against something like this. If she answered, she’d be playing the game the same way everyone else did—right now she would be defending Dahlia, and Runa, but what about next time? What about a month from now? A year? But the fuel that refusing to answer would throw onto a fire like this would be devastating. 

Quinn had to say something, and it wasn’t going to stop there.