It was late… or was it early? Pikelsimer didn’t really know. The Senior Federation Security Agent had spent… what… hours… in what he hoped and prayed would be the final debrief on the Asimov’s previous mission. The past few weeks had been a non-stop parade of intelligence analysts, bureaucrats, politicians, and high-ranking law enforcement officials… all seemingly hell-bent on trying to blame someone… anyone… for the escape of Elias Balthazar: pirate, smuggler, murderer, kidnapper, extortionist, and now confirmed Augment. Through it all, Pikelsimer’s stance held firm: the crew did their jobs at an exceptional level, endured hardships and stresses far above the norm, and acted in the best intrests of the mission AND the Federation at all times. He was also insistent that there was no way anyone could have anticipated the level of Machiavellian manipulation and planning that Balthazar had put together. When those trying to hang his escape on the Asimov crew tried to use their ‘evidence’ of why it should have been caught, Agent Pikelsimer was always quick to point out that the facts they were using came directly from the intelligence gathered by the crew themselves, so they couldn’t have e known what they just discovered.

The powers that be seemed to finally relent earlier that day, and officially closed the file and inquiry. Pikelsimer had then had to deal with nine months of backlog requests and reports… which he summarily put on an optical disc and took back to the ship.

Seeing Sharah was still dealing with her own agency’s agenda, he decided that drinking alone on their quarters was probably a bad idea. So, retrieving a jar of his homemade moonshine, he walked through the new ship amd to the Lounge, finding a seat in a far back corner and pouring a measure of clear liquid into a glass before staring out the window in silence.

Pikelsimer, FedSec