Lopez bows his head in silence for a moment.

"- the ship is??"

“The Martian navy doesn’t permit its ships to be captured,” he tells Blai matter-of-factly. “Though the boarders should have known that. I can’t imagine what they thought they were going to achieve.”

"- my books?" And also his mace and armor but this doesn't actually seem like the kind of environment where those are enormously useful, it's just that they were so expensive.

Fair enough, it's not like he knew any of the people who died.

“We made—copies.” Taldane doesn't have any of the words he would like to use here. “We have—machines that can store and manipulate information very efficiently. Paper books are obsolete for practical purposes.”

He grabs a tablet, loads up the scans of Blai’s books, and hands it to him, quickly demonstrating how to swipe to turn the page. (Technically these are highly classified MCRN files but the regulation obviously wasn’t intended to prevent him from sharing them with the person they stole the originals from.)

"Thank you."

He flips to the back and finds a prayer for dead people to recite, aloud but softly.

He bows his head again as Blai prays. He should probably clarify whether, since gods are apparently real, there are also afterlives. Not now. He can’t think about that right now.

Right now he needs to figure out how to take his ship back.

“We’re not going to Mars.”

(According to the prayer there are absolutely afterlives and Blai's religion has very strong opinions about which ones it is okay to go to.)

"Look, forget about making a public statement," he says to Holden, even though Mars is absolutely not going to forget about making him make a public statement. "Mars needs to know what the fuck just happened here, and the six of us are the only witnesses."

"So does Earth," says Holden, pressing some buttons on the console. "So does the Belt—and we'll tell them. We'll tell them right now."

This fucking guy. "Computer, lock all non-essential communications systems to my authorization only," he says, before Holden can start livestreaming to the entire system again. "How about we don't broadcast military secrets over widebeam?"

"Look, there's your problem. The secrets. That was the same ship that destroyed the Cant. Someone is blowing up ships, and they want Earth to think it's Mars, and Mars to think it's Earth. Keeping that shit secret is how you start a war. No one wants a war. Unless, I don't know, maybe you guys do."

Lopez is suddenly angry. "How dare you," he says coldly. "No Martian would ever attack one of our own ships. No matter how badly some of them are itching for a war."

"So then you admit that your people are the ones itching for a war. Because someone is, and it's not Earth, and it's sure as fuck not the Belt."

"Look, every planet has warmongers. Mars maybe a few more than the others. I don't want a war."

"Then help me prevent one. If we go back to Mars we'll be interrogated for the next six months and no one will believe us and the war will start anyway, which is why we're not going to Mars. You can't make us; I know the laws about stranded astronauts. You have to make a reasonable effort to return us to our home port. That's Ceres, so you probably want to let me make that transmission now if you want to be allowed to dock when we get there."

"I'll take you to Ceres. You're not making any transmissions using MCRN equipment without my authorization. What you do when you get there is your own business, I suppose."

"... is there a legal code summary I could read quickly before my Comprehend Languages wears off please?"

Yeah that seems like probably a good idea even though he’s very surprised by anyone thinking to actually do it. He takes Blai’s tablet back for a moment and pulls up the MCRN code of regulations. It’s pretty long and most parts aren’t at all relevant to Blai, but it is well organized; what’s he looking for?

“How much longer will it last?” he asks Blai. “Will my ability to speak your language also wear off?”

"Your and her Share Language lasts twenty four hours. I have another Comprehend prepared but it's still wise to use the time efficiently." He's looking for anything relevant to interactions between (apparently) Martians, Belters, and uncategorized foreigners because it doesn't seem likely they have a category for Golarionites.

The MCRN has extremely extensive regulations on its interactions with the citizens and military personnel of Earth, who need to be treated in accordance with sixteen different treaties; once Lopez shows him how to click links, Blai will see that these oblige both governments to come to the aid of astronauts in distress and return anyone accused of a serious crime to their home planet for trial and treat prisoners from the other faction really quite absurdly well even by Lastwall standards and many other things besides.

The word 'Belter' does not appear in the code at all. There are some references to 'stateless persons', who are still required to be treated in accordance with the Human Rights Act 2138 (still quite good by Golarion standards, but not wildly ahead of Lastwall), but have none of the mutually-negotiated rights that Earthers do; for any of the crimes over which Mars claims universal jurisdiction (piracy, terrorism, human trafficking, theft or destruction of MCRN property, smuggling of contraband goods) they can be tried by a military court even if civilians. Stateless persons reasonably believed to be engaged in piracy or terrorism are considered unlawful enemy combatants rather than civilians and the MRCN is not obliged to accept surrenders from them.

There is a brief section on extrasolar intelligence. MCRN personnel are obliged to immediately report any credible evidence of extrasolar intelligence to their commanding officer. The MCRN is to adopt a diplomatic posture towards any intelligent alien life it encounters; in peace or war, aliens are to be treated as possessing the same fundamental rights and dignity as humans insofar as this is compatible with the continued existence and flourishing of human civilization.

There is then an inscrutable-to-Blai list of types of alien intelligence which, all those other provisions notwithstanding, are to be immediately, ruthlessly, and at all costs destroyed if encountered.

lol

"Do I count as a stateless person given that my state does not have relations with Mars and I am a human?" Blai wants to know, and "Are these described creatures demons or something like that? I do not understand myself to be necessarily bound by these regulations about destroying them but I would like to know if there is good reason to do so anyway and if they're immune to some types of damage or other tactical information," and "Am I currently a prisoner," and "my spell ran out in the middle of this paragraph, but it looked like it was not likely relevant, can you confirm".

"That's ambiguous because we didn't expect there to be humans from outside our solar system, but in practice these regulations are designed for Belters, who don't have a government at all, or at least not one that cares about its people not being pirates and terrorists or has any ability to stop them."