"Human dreadnought," the alien voice came back, "your arrival was expected. You and your escorts may approach the Citadel where a shuttle may take your party to the designated landing zone."
"Thank you but we shall not be approaching the Citadel until you power down weapons in your obvious attempt to intimidate us," Drescher said to Anita's shock. "We do not need to be here, and such immature and antagonistic actions are not convincing me to stay in system."
"What are you doing?" Anita hissed in English. It had taken a few hours of practicing switching back and forth between the languages, but she had managed to be able to do so with relative ease.
Drescher just waved her off and for a long tense moment nothing happened. Anita could only assume that there were some very heated words being exchanged between the asari and turians and whoever was in charge.
"Human vessel, we acknowledge your request," the strange voice bit out like she was forcing herself to stay somewhat civil, "however, we do have a policy of not allowing warships from foreign powers too close to the Citadel without having our systems ready to respond."
Drescher had a sneer on her aged face. "Turian, you have more than four thousand warships in system while we have five," Drescher countered. "You can easily tell that we do not have our own weapon systems charged. We have come in good faith to negotiate peace between our peoples and yet you have met us here with weapons drawn. As such, I cannot in good conscience remain in system when the other side, being yourselves, is so openly hostile. I bid you good day and shall meet you on the battlefield. Pray to whatever gods you wish on that day because you shall need it."
"Helm, turnabout to the relay," the admiral ordered in English. "We are going home."
"Aye, sir!"
The ship started its turn and Anita found herself feeling at a loss. "Why are we leaving?" she demanded. "We were invited for peace talks to prevent a war!"
Admiral Drescher raised a stiff eyebrow. "I will not allow the conversation of peace to be conducted while there is a pistol at my head," she growled softly enough so that only Anita could hear her. "This was a deliberately antagonistic attempt to get us to do something foolish."
"We are doing something foolish," Anita bit out quietly. "We leave now and there will be a war. Even with the saiyan's help it is not something that we want to find ourselves in. If the saiyans choose not to fight with us then we face the loss of many thousands of lives."
"It won't come to that," the admiral said smoothly. "In fact, any second now…"
"Admiral!" a voice called out somewhere behind Anita. "All alien ship's weapons are powering down. Another transmission incoming, this time from the big dreadnought in the centre."
A tiny sly smile came over the admiral's lips. "See," she said softly. "You negotiate with politicians, I negotiate with military."