05-08-2026, 11:42 PM
== NRC Cindy Talion ==
Cindy looked at Jez for a moment and took in the details of her body language. There was a brief glance to Dalton before looking back at Jez and saying, "Listen, even if I could find something, it would only work for a day or two. He's experienced with Security and would quickly pick up on the fact that we would be stalling. Your best course of action is to get him to wait for information. You're right, if he goes off on his own, he's going to be compromised emotionally and make a mistake. You need to encourage him to let our people do their jobs and cover the leg work of investigating and tracking things down. If there's anything to know, they're going to find it."
She paused to let that sink in and then spoke again, "Jez, what he described doesn't really make sense. It sounds more to me like someone deliberately came in and did what they did, then left too many loose threads to intentionally send people sniffing in the wrong directions. Those leads will each go in a different direction and put those searching right in some deadend location where there will be an ambush waiting. In the interim, the real offenders will be long gone, hiding their tracks and heading to a safe place to lay low while the the investigation goes nowhere. It's what I would do. However, our people are trained for such things. We expect there to be traps and ambushes. We know what to look for. We'll find the things that are out of place and see if we can discover a mistake somewhere. No matter how careful you are, you can't plan on everything and sooner or later a mistake is made. Someone you didn't think saw anything actually saw something that makes a difference and so on. The universe has too many variables and nobody is perfect."
Looking her in the eye and saying it slowly, Cindy asked, "Jez...my understanding is that there may be no actual jurisdiction over this area. If we find them, what do you want us to do? This is a grey area. Obviously, we'll question them, but you need to know where you stand on this. You might want to think on that for a bit before you try to answer. Don't worry, the team will do everything they can to take these people alive, but they might not allow us to do that. If we catch them, I can promise that they will be kept alive and will not hurt people again, but it might be better if you leave it at that. As a Star Fleet Officer, you might want plausible deniability to whatever their eventual fate might be. That's all I'm saying."
== Tag Mala ==
Cindy looked at Jez for a moment and took in the details of her body language. There was a brief glance to Dalton before looking back at Jez and saying, "Listen, even if I could find something, it would only work for a day or two. He's experienced with Security and would quickly pick up on the fact that we would be stalling. Your best course of action is to get him to wait for information. You're right, if he goes off on his own, he's going to be compromised emotionally and make a mistake. You need to encourage him to let our people do their jobs and cover the leg work of investigating and tracking things down. If there's anything to know, they're going to find it."
She paused to let that sink in and then spoke again, "Jez, what he described doesn't really make sense. It sounds more to me like someone deliberately came in and did what they did, then left too many loose threads to intentionally send people sniffing in the wrong directions. Those leads will each go in a different direction and put those searching right in some deadend location where there will be an ambush waiting. In the interim, the real offenders will be long gone, hiding their tracks and heading to a safe place to lay low while the the investigation goes nowhere. It's what I would do. However, our people are trained for such things. We expect there to be traps and ambushes. We know what to look for. We'll find the things that are out of place and see if we can discover a mistake somewhere. No matter how careful you are, you can't plan on everything and sooner or later a mistake is made. Someone you didn't think saw anything actually saw something that makes a difference and so on. The universe has too many variables and nobody is perfect."
Looking her in the eye and saying it slowly, Cindy asked, "Jez...my understanding is that there may be no actual jurisdiction over this area. If we find them, what do you want us to do? This is a grey area. Obviously, we'll question them, but you need to know where you stand on this. You might want to think on that for a bit before you try to answer. Don't worry, the team will do everything they can to take these people alive, but they might not allow us to do that. If we catch them, I can promise that they will be kept alive and will not hurt people again, but it might be better if you leave it at that. As a Star Fleet Officer, you might want plausible deniability to whatever their eventual fate might be. That's all I'm saying."
== Tag Mala ==