Maya Reyes
Full Name: Maya Reyes
Known As: Officer Reyes
Species: Human
Gender: Female
Age: 27
Faction: Protection and Crime Enforcement
Rank: Officer
Assignment: Patrol and General Enforcement
Occupation: PCE Officer
Status: Active
Maya Reyes is an Officer within Protection and Crime Enforcement, serving primarily in conventional patrol and general law-enforcement duties.
Unlike the commissioners, tactical commanders, specialist investigators, and anomalous personnel frequently associated with major PCE operations, Reyes represents the much larger number of officers responsible for ordinary policing throughout the Omicron Galaxy.
Her work consists less of galaxy-threatening crises and more of responding to whatever problem happens to be waiting behind the next door.
Sometimes that means theft.
Sometimes it means a drunken argument.
Sometimes it means discovering that the supposedly abandoned cargo container somebody reported making noises is considerably less abandoned than expected.
Reyes has learned not to make assumptions.
Appearance
Reyes is a human woman of average height with a moderately athletic build developed through standard PCE fitness requirements rather than specialist military conditioning.
She has dark brown hair, brown eyes, and medium-tan skin.
While on duty, she wears standard PCE patrol equipment appropriate to her jurisdiction.
Her uniform is deliberately practical and immediately identifiable as law enforcement.
Reyes generally looks considerably less intimidating than Tactical Response personnel.
She prefers it that way.
Most people she encounters are civilians, not enemy combatants.
Personality
Reyes is observant, personable, curious, and occasionally sarcastic.
She has an easy manner when dealing with civilians and generally prefers talking to people rather than immediately asserting authority over them.
Her relaxed personality can disappear remarkably quickly when a situation becomes dangerous.
Reyes is not fearless.
She simply understands that panic becomes considerably less useful when everybody else is already doing it.
She possesses a strong sense of curiosity which has occasionally proven both useful and deeply inconvenient.
If something does not make sense, Reyes wants to know why.
This tendency has helped her identify details that other people overlooked.
It has also resulted in her investigating things that, in hindsight, she probably should have waited for backup to investigate.
Career
Reyes joined PCE as a Cadet and completed standard law-enforcement training before receiving promotion to Officer.
She has remained primarily within patrol and general enforcement rather than immediately pursuing a specialist career.
This has exposed her to an enormous variety of incidents.
Reyes has responded to thefts, assaults, missing persons, vehicle collisions, public disturbances, domestic incidents, commercial disputes, illegal weapons, suspicious spacecraft, narcotics offences, synthetic-related incidents, and countless situations that never receive attention outside the neighbourhood where they occurred.
She does not consider this work beneath her.
As far as Reyes is concerned, galaxy-wide crime statistics mean very little to the person whose home was broken into last night.
Patrol Work
Most of Reyes’s career consists of ordinary patrol duty.
She responds to emergency calls, investigates suspicious activity, performs arrests, interviews witnesses, assists injured civilians, protects crime scenes, conducts searches, and provides initial response during major incidents.
This makes patrol officers such as Reyes the first PCE personnel to encounter many developing threats.
They frequently arrive without knowing exactly what they are walking into.
A routine disturbance can become an armed siege.
A missing-person report can become a kidnapping investigation.
A stolen vehicle can lead toward organised crime.
A suspicious object can result in an entire street being evacuated.
Reyes has therefore developed one particularly important habit:
She calls things in.
Knowing When to Call Someone Else
Reyes understands that being a competent officer does not mean personally solving every problem she encounters.
When she discovers something requiring expertise she does not possess, she requests it.
An armed barricade requires Tactical Response.
A complex homicide requires investigators.
A suspicious synthetic system may require technical specialists.
A possible explosive requires somebody who understands explosives considerably better than Reyes does.
And something which appears to violate several generally accepted principles of physics requires everyone to stop touching it until someone significantly above Reyes’s pay grade arrives.
This has not prevented Reyes from occasionally finding herself trapped in situations before specialist assistance can reach her.
Approach to Policing
Reyes believes good policing depends heavily upon discretion.
Not every situation needs to end with someone in restraints.
She is willing to give warnings, separate people, calm disputes, help intoxicated civilians get somewhere safe, and solve minor problems without unnecessarily escalating them into criminal proceedings.
This does not make her permissive.
When someone presents a genuine danger to others, Reyes acts.
She simply believes authority becomes less effective when an officer feels compelled to demonstrate it constantly.
Her preferred outcome is usually the boring one.
Everyone goes home.
Paperwork gets filed.
Nobody gets shot.
Equipment
Reyes carries standard PCE patrol equipment rather than specialist tactical gear.
Her usual equipment includes:
- Standard PCE patrol uniform
- Protective vest
- P2-series service pistol
- Communications equipment
- Restraints
- Medical supplies
- Identification and evidence tools
- Portable scanner
- Less-lethal equipment
Additional equipment may be issued depending upon location and assignment.
Reyes is trained with larger firearms but does not routinely patrol carrying enough weaponry to invade a military installation.
Combat
Reyes possesses standard PCE firearms and defensive training.
She is a competent shooter and capable of protecting herself or others during violent encounters.
She is not an elite combatant.
Against a trained military operative, heavily augmented soldier, or many of the anomalous entities existing throughout the Omicron Galaxy, Reyes would be severely disadvantaged.
She knows this.
Her response to superior threats is therefore based around positioning, communication, cover, civilian evacuation, and surviving until appropriate support arrives.
Reyes considers surviving a fight through good judgement preferable to winning one through luck.
Relationship with Tactical Response
Like many patrol officers, Reyes has encountered Chief Inspector Elena Ward primarily during incidents which escalated beyond conventional policing.
Ward places considerable importance on information provided by first-response officers.
Reyes appreciates this.
When Tactical Response arrives, Ward’s first questions frequently concern what the patrol officers saw, heard, and were told before the situation escalated.
Reyes has learned to provide concise information and then get out of the tactical team’s way.
She has no desire to follow them through the door.
Commissioner Thompson
Reyes knows Commissioner Gareth Thompson primarily through his position and reputation rather than any close personal relationship.
Thompson represents the distant upper levels of an organisation Reyes experiences primarily from street level.
Some of his policies have earned her respect.
Others have caused considerably more complicated conversations between officers after their shifts.
Reyes nevertheless understands that the decisions reaching her patrol unit are often the end result of problems far larger than anything visible from the street.
Whether that makes those decisions correct is another question.
Civilians
Reyes spends considerably more time speaking with civilians than fighting criminals.
This has shaped her understanding of PCE.
To senior leadership, a city may consist of crime rates, districts, budgets, deployments, and population figures.
To Reyes, it consists of people.
Shop owners who recognise her.
Children who ask questions about her equipment.
Workers coming home late.
People having the worst day of their lives.
People wasting police time over spectacularly stupid arguments.
Repeat offenders who somehow always insist they have never met her before.
Reyes remembers faces.
It is one of the reasons she enjoys patrol work.
The Strange Calls
Working within the Omicron Galaxy means even ordinary law enforcement occasionally encounters things that are not ordinary.
Reyes has responded to reports involving unidentified technology, unusual biological material, abandoned equipment, unexplained signals, malfunctioning synthetic systems, and objects civilians absolutely should not have attempted to bring home.
Most eventually receive mundane explanations.
Some do not.
Reyes is not an anomalous investigator and does not pretend to be one.
Her standing personal policy regarding inexplicable objects is simple:
Do not touch it.
This policy was developed through experience.
Reyes refuses to elaborate.
Ambition
Reyes has not decided what she wants the remainder of her PCE career to become.
Detective work interests her.
So does specialist investigation.
She has also considered remaining in patrol long enough to eventually become a Sergeant.
Unlike many younger officers, Reyes does not regard promotion as the sole measurement of a successful career.
She wants to become better at the job before deciding what job she wants next.
For now, she remains Officer Reyes.
Reputation
Reyes is not famous.
Most inhabitants of the Omicron Galaxy will never know her name.
She has never commanded an army, discovered an ancient civilisation, fought an Ascended being, or decided the fate of a world.
She is one officer among countless others working across populated space.
And that is precisely what makes her important.
While armies fight wars and powerful factions struggle over the future of the galaxy, people still steal things.
People still disappear.
People still crash vehicles.
People still hurt each other.
People still need help.
And when they call PCE, someone has to answer.