“I want his head on a pike!” Commander Drake demanded. They knew who was responsible, and it was time justice was served.

“Of course you do, Commander,” Admiral Reyes chuckled. Since when had the avaricious JAG prosecutor ever wanted any less? “But that’s not how this works.”

“Why not?”

“There are other factors at play,” Admiral Reyes counseled. “Ones you’re not considering.” As long as she’d known Commander Drake, he’d struggled with the dimensionality of complex situations, and this one was multidimensional and complex to say the least.

“What sort of factors outweigh the proliferation of illicit technology and a terrorist attack that nearly leveled the colony?” Commander Drake asked incredulously. Had the admiral gone crazy? This guy had modified Borg subroutines to compromise the fusion reactor, and in doing so, he’d almost killed every man, woman and child on Duraxis.

Standing next to the JAG, Lieutenant Commander Koh let them duke it out, but she fully agreed with the commander.

“Voral is a leading candidate in the upcoming elections, and he’s achieved his standing through outspoken anti-Federation localism,” Admiral Reyes pointed out. “If we go down there and arrest him, what does that look like?”

Neither the JAG nor the security chief replied. Instead, it was the young intelligence chief from the USS Pacific Palisades, the one who’d embedded with the locals and observed the protests firsthand, who offered an answer. “A Federation cover up,” Ensign Alessa Elara chimed in. “Or at least suppression of our opposition.” She’d just been briefing the admiral on the latest from the surface when the duo had stormed into the ready room.

“With all due respect, I don’t think we have a choice here,” Lieutenant Commander Koh responded firmly. “This is Borg tech we’re talking about. We need to move to apprehend him.” They’d seen the consequences of proliferation firsthand on Beta Serpentis, and she wasn’t looking for a repeat.

“I concur,” Commander Drake agreed. This wasn’t some local political squabble. This was about a criminal who set out to commit mass murder.

“Ensign, would you mind sharing what you learned earlier down on the surface?” Admiral Reyes asked.

“Certainly,” Ensign Elara nodded, her expression a bit sheepish as she realized she was in the middle of a tug-of-war far above her grade. “Before Lieutenant Commander Koh had returned from the surface, word was already spreading about our operation to apprehend the Teral brothers. Somebody in the local security office leaked it, and as the story goes, you guys strong-armed them into helping grab a couple young kids who work tirelessly, day in and day out, to put food on the table for their aged mother.”

“That’s a crock of shit…” Lieutenant Commander Koh grumbled.

“Of course it is, but that’s what we’re working against,” Admiral Reyes noted. She knew that perception was often more powerful than reality. “We go down there guns ablaze and capture their populist hero, and any hope we have of rebuilding Duraxis and repairing their views of us will vanish.” She still wanted an outcome that didn’t end with a colony estranged from the Federation.

“Sounds like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too, Allison,” Commander Drake counseled. “We can’t always make the plebeians happy.”

“By the end of this, you’ll get your pound of flesh, I assure you that,” Admiral Reyes replied. However, it was more than just that which gave her pause. “But you see, right now all we’ve got is the word of a kid to go on. That’s not much to stand on.” It wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, nor the court of public opinion, and Voral wouldn’t roll over as easily as young Redrick had. “Get back down there and find me something more to go on.”