Officers Mess, Joint Operations Command, Bungendore NSW
What’s the difference between the Armed Forces and the Boy Scouts?
The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. Grat’s Book of Dinnertime Jokes.
Commodore Peta Philippe led Joey into the Officers Mess.
"You'll probably find the coffee here a bit better."
"Thanks, Commodore."
"When we're not mixed in with ADF personnel, call me Peta."
Joey nodded at Peta, and they sat in a corner booth with a bit more privacy. He continued, "As I see it, Peta, we've got two problems plus a situation."
"Go on."
"Problem number one is that there has been a major crime committed here. This was a premeditated attempted murder. As part of that crime's defence will be that Alexa is a shifter, which is currently a secret.
"Problem number two is that we don't want to delay the integration significantly, but the person with the most experience has been shot and will not be available to move this forward, but this whole incident shows how important it is that we do progress.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"The situation is that there has now been fairly wide exposure of this secret. A fair bit of damage control will need to be done."
A steward came up to their table and took their order.
Once the steward had moved away, Peta said, "When is the secret due to be officially released?"
"About two and a half weeks."
"Problem one will be fine. It will take longer than that for the case to be prepared and a mental evaluation done. So, we just need to do a reveal to the persons involved with handling this case and doing the mental eval. It would probably make sense to keep the case in the Military, as we can keep more of a lid on it. This will also tie into the situation. Again, by the time stuff leaks out it won't matter. That chat we've had with the staff concerned will hopefully keep enough of a lid on it to see us through till then.
"I can see a potential fix for problem number two, but we'll have to talk to Alexa and try to get a timeframe for when she will be comfortable in returning."
"Let's go have a chat to Charles Mbabazi. I'd like to know how implicated he is in all of this."
"Lunch first, us Commodores need our sustenance."
---***---
After lunch, the pair ended up in the Military Police area, on a conference call with the various departments involved. It ended up taking thirty minutes to work out who's case this was, get everyone assigned their roles, and have those based elsewhere on their way to HQJOC (B).
This was going to take the combined efforts of the Military Police, AFP, Military Justice, Office of the Directorate of Military Prosecutions, and the Directorate of Defence Counsel Services. The initial gathering of evidence was to be done by the Military Police, then handed over to the AFP for processing. Because of the nature of the incident, the Prime Minister’s Office also had to be informed.
Bureaucracies.
Looking at his watch, Joey suggested they go wake up Alexa and get her interview out of the way, then they could move on to Charles. This would allow time for the rest of the circus to arrive.