"Monsieur, my finances are more or less nonexistent. If they were, my ship would have been equipped well enough to take on two fighters." He smiled at the short man sitting at his table. His lack of size made him look comical as his feet dangled several centimeters above the floor. Pierre had a hard time taking him seriously, despite the gravity of the situation he was in and the air of authority that revolved around the interrogator.
"I did not buy the Rapiere, I - how do you Sirians call it? - purloined it. It happened to be moored to the prison station I was stuck in, so it turned out to be a convenient means of escape." Pierre thought back to the wild pursuit through the station's airlocks followed by the even wilder pursuit through space as half a dozen police fighters peppered his newly "acquired" ship with bolts of energy. Despite the opposition, he had managed to escape from the ships and, after days of floating through nebulae and asteroid fields, repairing the Rapiere as best he could, found a way out of Gallia.
"So, as you may be able to imagine, I was lacking credits when I arrived here. That is why I resorted to piracy." Pierre looked back out of his cell's small window into the blue void of the Shikoku system. He marveled at the beauty of it.
Still gazing out into the distance, he continued, "As to why I am considered a criminal in Gallia? I was as much of a brigand there, monsieur, as I am... was here."
Smiling again, he turned back to face the stout man sitting on the other side of the metal bars that imprisoned Pierre.
"Have I managed to satisfactorily answer all of your questions, monsieur?"
