Shore Leave: The Warehouse

Hector gets up and picks up a datapad from one of the shelves in the room. He fiddles around with it for a bit and then hands it to Cass. Looking through the files in the folder that he has opened, Cass finds a mission briefing letter that confirms Hector's story, digitally signed by Admiral Samuel Tanner. There are also some intelligence reports that indicate unusual Naplican behavior in the neutral zone and unauthorized communications from Earth to a Naplican colony near the zone. There is a transcript of an interrogation of a Naplican who was caught in the neutral zone who states to have permission from a spacefleet admiral to cross it and a follow up report that proves that no such permission was ever officially granted. There is a report about a dead spacefleet officer who was discovered in an autopsy to have been a surgically altered Naplican. Another file reports that Consortium spies have discovered Naplican interest in the Casoera terraforming project.
There are more reports and documents, all dating back between a few months and three years ago and seemingly confirming Hector's story. Names and identifying information for a lot of sources and authors of these documents have been blacked out but the information remains intact. It all looks official and real but you would need access to the spacefleet network to prove their authenticity.

"Spacefleet intelligence has discovered a Naplican override program that is supposedly able to get around Consortium security systems. Countermeasures have been installed in secret and we were testing whether they were effective. The cadets have not been harmed in any way. You can speak to them if you want."

Instead of Hector, it's Endra who replies: "Because they're idiots, pardon the directness. I could've tried to get one of you to do it but that wouldn't have gotten me anywhere." She smirks slyly. "And besides, if those little ones wanna be fleeters, they'll have to deal with this kind of stuff eventually anyway."

Hector shrugs in response to Cass' statement. "I guess so. But they will get over it." When she asks her question, Hector explains: "The attack on your group was not the only mission my team performed tonight. Endra freed the cadets at the same time. They're upstairs, unharmed and safe."

"You don't play any part in this, unless you want to. Like I said, your abduction has been unplanned. If you want to help the admiral - and the Consortium - we will introduce you to Admiral Tanner and I'm sure he will see your value to this investigation. If you decide that you don't want any part in this, you will still have to stay until Tanner's ship arrives and then you can return to your friends. It's up to you. We just can't allow the chance that you might compromise our mission."

"They were unknowing participants in a Special Forces mission. Once this thing is over, Admiral Tanner will make sure that the note in their personal file will be as positive as it can be. In the long run it will probably help their career by making them stand out from other applications", Hector replies. "We can argue about the ethics of drugging them and making them commit a crime but we did what was necessary for the mission with as little damage to them and their careers as possible."

"Most of them are members of Special Forces as well, people I've worked with for years." He looks at the woman Cass was gesturing at. "Lt. Sandra Troy, she recently joined my team after serving on... some ship for a few years, I'm forgetting its name. She's a good officer, despite your first impression of her. But if you do want to see her bloodthirsty, just try to beat her at poker." He turns back to you. "The odd one out here is Endra. She's a civilian. Tanner hired her to help us out with her abilities. In exchange, spacefleet will forget about her criminal history."
When he talks about her, Endra lets out a sarcastic chuckle but doesn't comment further on it.

"The usual", Endra replies with a smirk. Even though she's replying to Cass, she seems to keep her eyes more on Alex than Cass. "Smuggling and trading weapons. It's a lucrative business as long as you don't get caught."

"I understand your position completely, commander. Unfortunately, I don't know what else I can do at this point to prove to you I'm telling the truth. By now, planet security is definitely searching for us and any access to the database will be noticed and will immediately give away our location. If we get captured before the admiral arrives, the investigation is over and this was all pointless. We will have to wait. Once the admiral is here, however, you can talk to him. He will be able to provide all the proof you need.", Hector says.

"Helping out in the investigation. The traitors in spacefleet command can't stop this investigation and they should not have any certainty about whether or not Tanner has knowledge of the conspiracy but the conspirators on the planet might still be suspicious of his investigation. The fact that you are in no way associated with the admiral might mean that security will trust you more easily than they will his people and it might allow you faster and easier access to certain information." Hector shrugs. "But in the end, it's all up to you. You are on shore leave so if you just want to evacuate as soon as Tanner arrives, nobody will stop you."