Cohost writing prompt: @spy-thief-assassin-who — Rebel who keeps shooting the white flag
"Rebel commander," Yan an Dien seethes into the radio, "this is the senior staffer of the research facility you have under fire. Are you are aware we are attempting to send out a party under a white flag. Are you aware you're firing on a white flag. Have you heard of fucking war crimes."
"Fuck you, corpo," a voice on the radio replies. "There's no crime without a framework of law and an applicable jurisdiction, and your fucking corporations didn't fucking want that out here, did they?"
"This is a scientific research facility," an Dien says. "The last transport left, under fire, three days ago — you know this. There are two hundred considered-disposable technicians in here, and the corp took out everything not nailed down. This is your glorious fucking revolution, is it? Let the soldiers go and slaughter the softest targets left?"
"Fuck you, corpo."
"All I know about you is from company propaganda," an Dien says. "Which I trust probably less than you do. I don't know if you take prisoners. I don't know what you do to them. What I do know is that the corp took the generators when they left, and you've bombed the solar arrays, and we're running on battery reserve. Life support is running on battery reserve. I've got choices to make before two hundred unarmed techs die of life support failure, and one choice I've got is the failsafe attached to the air circulation, for the corp to prevent any rivals from taking their research talent — instant fucking death nerve gas release."
"You fucking corpos make me sick," the radio voice says angrily.
"Yeah, well," says an Dien. "It's quick and painless. Better than air scrubber failure. And I could surrender, but maybe you'll torture us all to death anyway. I could fucking ask about prisoner treatment, under some mutually recognised sign of parley older than me and you and the corps and fucking spaceflight, but SOME FUCKING CUNT keeps SHOOTING AT IT, which looks a lot like an answer from where I'm standing, eh?"