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.