Taking the scale factor away he had to concede that this was no different than some of the things he’d done as an agent in the CIS. Were any of his political assassinations really so different than sending a few squadrons of starships to hit the Darshik? When you boiled away the distracting details of each there wasn’t really any distinction between his killing of a single person to encourage a certain political outcome than there was in killing Darshiks for the Ushin.

“What the hell,” he muttered and began bringing the Broadhead’s primary flight systems back online. Pike had what was kindly called a “flexible morality” and it was one of the main reasons he was found to be psychologically suited for work as an agent.

He directed his stealthy ship into a steep climb that would take it out of the low orbit it had been loitering in and break connection with the device he’d put on Wellington. It was one of the better bits of tech he’d gotten from CIS before the fall of Haven; the tiny transmitter would actually dissolve away the next time the shirt was laundered and his boss would be none the wiser. As he felt the throb of the Broadhead’s reactionless drive he wondered what, if anything, he should do with the ill-gotten information. Normally when he pulled one of these counter-intelligence stunts with his boss it was as a sort of checks and balance and he never trafficked information that couldn’t have been found through legitimate means had someone just known to look.

This was different, and he couldn’t easily explain away potential actions he might take that would be rightly considered treason were he found out. The documents he’d leaked to the media regarding Jackson Wolfe notwithstanding, he had no desire to be branded a traitor and he really had no moral high ground to plant his flag on save for a vague uneasiness about senior politicians manipulating the government for gain. But was there really anything wrong going on here? The Fleet flies out to help a species that is asking to be protected and is offered a haul of planets in return. Alliances have been struck for weaker reasoning and other than the “politics as usual” aspect of it Pike wasn’t so certain Wellington and Marcum were in the wrong.

No … for now he’d just keep the recording to himself and do as he was ordered. Wellington hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of his CENTCOM Chief of Staff regarding Project Prometheus, so while they’d been hooked into the Amsterdam’s com system via the Tsuyo provided backdoor Pike had also cast a wide net through any of Marcum’s files he could find. As soon as he’d dropped off the President at the New Sierra Platform his new orders were to start hunting for whatever this project was.