Captain, let's hear your excuses?

"Captain Justin, about the base defense incident the other day..." "Lieutenant Colonel, I've already submitted the report on that..." "No, that's fine." "I see..." "At that time, you weren't at the base. You had left command in the hands of the lieutenant second in command." "That's because I was reporting to headquarters for a regular meeting..." "That meeting is the next day. Why would you need to come the day before? Furthermore, I heard that you punished the lieutenant for failing to defend the base..." "Th-that's..." "Captain, let's hear your explanation?"