Sunday February 8, 2015
Book 15: Delegates and Delegation — Part III: Conflagration

Transcript

NARRATOR: Plute Plaza...

BALA-AMIN: *holoprojected* Captain, I just briefed the Penultimate Admiralty.  They unanimously agreed to approve the actions we've taken.

SORLIE: Cool.  I'd hate to have my salary garnished to cover car payments.

BALA-AMIN: *holoprojected* They do have a request.

SORLIE: By which they mean orders.  Go on.

BALA-AMIN: You are to capture as many of these brain-hacked J.S.C. officers as possible.

SORLIE: No problem.

BALA-AMIN: You also need to recover some of their weapons.

SORLIE: That is a problem.  The hacked taters explode shortly after being taken or dropped.

BALA-AMIN: Chesapeake says that not all of them explode.  He can point you to a few that are intact.

SORLIE: If they're intact, we can—

BALA-AMIN: *holoprojected, interrupting* No.

Chesapeake does not know why they did not explode.  Arming yourselves with them would be unwise.

BALA-AMIN: *holoprojected* I'll lay it out, Captain.  If we're going to prevent this from turning into a civil war, we need evidence showing that this was an attack by a foreign power.

We are not going to be given a chance to make a case to a judge, jury, or attornicorps.  We need to quickly win over billions of people.  We need something they can look at.

SORLIE: Live capture it is, then.  That seems simple enough.

KATHRYN: Is it so simple that the enemy will have already planned for it?

MURTAUGH: I'm sorry, Captain Sorlie.  Junior officers are why we can't have nice things.