Astrid’s Calamitous Christmas Caper – page 19
You know it’s serious because everything’s still red. Look, man, it’s Christmas. It’s just be wrong to not have SOME red on display.
Also, I’m not sure if the utter failure to mention the police as an option says more about how full of themselves this organization is, or just the state of the Interplanetary Police Network in general.
All those other organizations, being for-profit, are much MUCH more well funded, better equipped, and fully staffed than the Space Cops, so it’s only natural he’d think of those first. The Space Cops likely wouldn’t have even had the manpower/budget/time to investigate something as minor as a little bit of gift-skimming if it hadn’t been a special request form the Big Guy himself – Christmas is something like 15% of the entire economy, and this guy runs Christmas – when the guy who controls 15% of the Galactic Economy asks, it becomes top priority! Not to mention that the Police Chief didn’t want to end up with a stocking full of coal himself 😉
She’s not even doing this for the Space Cops. They were likely discounted for having to many people on the Nice List (at least partly due to their inherent incompetence). No, she’s doing it at the request of the Santa Corporation, so the fact that she could literally go to directly to his employer and get him and everyone around him legally fired for his acts of theft is what’s surprising.
She is doing it for the Space Cops, as it was orders from her Lieutenant, but he did imply that the orders came down from the Commisioner, so it’s likely that the Santa Corporation called the Commish directly and requested it, and apparently specifically asked for Astrid, but he did go through channels so it is an official Space Cop assignment.
I wouldn’t be so sure he can get fired, though – I’m sure he can get arrested for grand theft and conspiracy, but the Elves’ Union is pretty powerful, so it’s probably a lot easier to arrest them than to fire them – the firing process takes years and years and soooo much paperwork. That’s likely the same reason Santa Corp’s CEO mentioned that he was no longer allowed to monitor the employees for naughty/nice behavior – Elves Union rules.