It was becoming clear to the Supervisor that this interview was going nowhere, but before the evening news aired, he was going to have to get some solid evidence one way or the other. Too many people had seen and recorded the incident, and the man in front of him had gotten clearance to take his own personal yacht to the surface of the Business District without a search.
"Supervisor, can we speak for a moment?" A demanding voice asked from outside the door.
Max relaxed in his seat. The cavalry had arrived.
The planetary Governor had sent someone to the resort to welcome all the VIP guests from Terminus, only to find that the Commander had been arrested and was being questioned at that moment. It was already public knowledge, and it was turning into a scandal when they were trying to keep the disaster in the Black Market under wraps.
The old boss had upheld his territory, and had managed to turn things around into a heavy purge of those who were supposed to be loyal to him. But that had cost the lives of dozens of police who had been caught in the crossfire.
Why anyone had tried to put the blame on the humans was anyone's guess, but if he had to wager, he would say that they likely hadn't been in the brothel, and they had visited the boss before the battle to give him a warning.
Those who had backed the losing side were in a rage right now, and in danger of being outed as traitors after the police who had been sent in to clean up had been killed instead.
It was a huge mess, and he needed answers.
The two stepped into another of the soundproof rooms, and the official thumped his hands on the table in frustration.
"Alright, I know the basics. I know who sent the police after Commander Max, I know who set him up with his guide, and I know the time frame. But there are some things I don't know if your department knew before they went along with it.
Did you know that he's got a Diplomatic Identification Card, issued by the Central Government?"
The Supervisor shook his head. "I didn't ask, he had been identified and brought here before I found out."
"Alright, then did you know that his Colony Ship is militarized? Even though it's ostensibly a cruise ship, Terminus carries an entire armoured Battalion on board, and has weapons capable of breaching our planetary defences."
The Supervisor lost his form again in shock, a new personal record for him in one single day.
"They can do what? No, nobody told me that. It's a cruise ship, not a warship." He stammered, unable to speak clearly when he was having trouble holding his form.
"Alright, let's start with the simple things, who thought it would be a good idea to make a public spectacle in a coffee shop while he was doing official business? They filed a tax payment form only two minutes before your men entered, and I have footage of the shipment being delivered ten minutes before that."
The Supervisor knew that things had gone from bad to worse for his department now. The only solid evidence showed him getting laid and then going to a business meeting at a coffee shop.
Then he realized that Coffee was a human product to begin with. They had raided during an official business meeting on his first day on the planet. There wasn't much more of a cover the man could ask for at this point.
"This is farked." The supervisor sighed.
"You're telling me. Now we need to smooth all of this over and hope that the humans don't hold a grudge because they've got over a hundred thousand tourists from their ship here on the planet, and plans to return twice a year."
If there was one thing that the politicians liked, it was money, and a quarter million wealthy tourists a year was a big deal.
The Government official sighed and continued. "Do you think that we can convince him to downplay the issue? I've been looking into the data on humans, and they don't look like the sort of people you want to have angry at you. Seriously, they play beyond dirty. Look at this listing of companies they've crushed in trade wars over the last year. That's just one year."
The supervisor looked at the names and frowned. He had heard about some of these in the news. The collapses of their companies had collapsed multiple planetary economies. He read them through twice, then simply decided to voice his honest opinion.
"We've been set up. It was never about trying to get him in jail. Someone in the government upset someone important, and they are setting us up for a trade war with the humans. They've got the money and the power, plus the access to patents, they could crush us. If they wanted to, they could own our planet without much of an issue, just by buying out the resorts.
I think that the killings never mattered, they were part of the setup, and this mess would have happened anyhow. There is a traitor in the government with the power to set the police on foreigners without being questioned." The Supervisor replied.
"That's my thought as well. I don't know why, or who they're working for, but we're the fall guys in this power play, and I'm not putting up with it." The Government Official agreed.
"But what do we do about it?" The police supervisor asked.
"We smooth it over as well as we can, and then I ask for intervention. My brother-in-law's cousin is a clerk in the Envoy department. I'm going to have him put in a request for the Envoys to the humans to try to smooth things over for us.
The data says that they have a dedicated team, since there are so many companies complaining that the humans are stepping on their toes with all this new technology that they are releasing.
Speaking of that, did you notice what they delivered to the coffee shop?"
The Police Supervisor looked at the documents in shock. "A proprietary pattern Coffee Shop model Replicator? Holy crap, how did that guy get the backing of the Reavers. With that, he can legally claim that he's selling authentic goods from the humans. It will be the biggest sensation in the business quarter when the word gets out."
Max relayed that information to Nico, and made sure that she had input a number of human snacks and coffee shop items, as well as what the shop used to sell. If they were going to treat him as an official human shop, then it was only right that he served actual human cuisine.
[Got it. We're already working on a deal to get more cool stuff here. Some of it for us and some of it from us. Turns out our coffee man is a huge history nerd, and he's got all sorts of connections to various antique dealers.] Nico replied.
[Perfect. Make sure that we get the heads-up on any interesting artifacts that come in while we're out searching. Even if we can't pick them up right away, then at least get us the details, in case they help our search.]
