| SUBMITTED: Stardate 96162.1 | FILED BY: CMDR Akaela, Tala | SECURITY: Level 2 - Confidential |
LOCATION: DS13 Conference Room
MISSION: Determine truth behind Shackleton EPS incident, and who is responsible
OUTCOME: LCDR Pierce placed in custody of Starfleet security following confession of sabotage
KEY PERSONNEL:
CAPT A. Derenzis
CMDR T. Akaela
LCDR K. Pierce (NPC)
LCDR Y. Thorne
LT O. Mercer
LT J. Thurston
LT S. Valore
LTJG M. Khet
CMDR T. Akaela
LCDR K. Pierce (NPC)
LCDR Y. Thorne
LT O. Mercer
LT J. Thurston
LT S. Valore
LTJG M. Khet
NARRATIVE: Following a week of investigations by the CIR team formed by Captain Quint (consisting of myself, Lieutenants Mercer and Thurston, Lieutenant JG Khet, and our newest crew member Lieutenant Commander Thorne), the team met along with Captain Derenzis and Lieutenant Valore (there on behalf of the Fleet staff) in the starbase conference room to go over a summary of the investigation and to confront Mr. Pierce about his suspected wrong doing.
We went over the events in the investigation, which involved early details of the suspicious program installed in the Shackleton by Pierce's team that we had removed but suspected had affected systems before it was removed. Mercer and Khet elaborated on what they learned both before and after the the incident. Following this we went over our test in the holodeck that Thurston had set up to analyze what the program, which we had a copy, would do if left to run. The results were about as expected, with a fate equal to or worse than what actually occurred on the ship. We heard from Ms. Thorne who had cracked the encryption on the program that gave us enough to show it was malicious in it's design, as well as how Khet and Mercer retrieved a PADD from the ship belonging to an inspection team member named Marth that had been proven to have installed the program. The PADD however did have enough information to show Pierce was the user at the time. This effectively was enough evidence to show he committed the act but we couldn't confirm if it was malicious or he was aware of what he was doing without getting more information from him.
Before summoning him I did share a tip we received from a private undisclosed source that Pierce formally worked in the shipyard that Shackleton was constructed. He had designed a special warp core modification which would have vastly improved travel, and was lauded for this. However this very system on Shackleton caused a large amount of issues and was ultimately considered a failure and removed, which had destroyed Pierce's accomplishment. We called him in under the assumption this story meant he sought revenge.
After he arrived we questioned him. I took an approached designed both to use his ego against him, a suggestion by Ms. Thorne, and also to get him to slowly tell the story from his view in the hopes he'd implicate himself. To my slight chagrin my crewmates were a bit less subtle than I and felt the need to push him more aggressively. I tried to avoid addressing this openly and just steered the conversation back by using a tactic of acting as if I was understanding of his annoyance that his pet project had failed, and agreeing with him that it made sense to prove the problem was the Shackleton and not his design. Ultimately he admitted to the sabotage in a roundabout way, but it was no less conclusive. To my surprise his motive was less one of vengeance, though he did harbor ill will to the ship and it's Captain it seems, but he was motivated out of a genuine belief the ship was the reason his design had failed and it would work given a chance on a subjectively better ship.
Nonetheless he had admitted his guilt in sabotaging the Shackleton and in the process causing the deaths of 4 crewmembers, regardless of his intentions. We turned him over to Starbase Security at this point.
Captain Derenzis and Lieutenant Valore were silent observers throughout this (at least as far as I was able to notice). The yeoman to the Admiral said she would brief the Rear Admiral on what had happened and departed. The rest of us filed out having completed our task and solving the mystery.
RECOMMENDATION: The U.S.S. Shackleton lock down can now be lifted and repairs recommenced in earnest so the crew can continue running missions. At the time of this writing a large tactical mission began unfolding that the ship and her crew were unable to take part in, and many ships had damages. This author recognizes this could slow repair times, but ideally Shackleton can be brought operational soon so that if any follow up happens related to this mission we can now assist in addition to our standard mission profile.
OOC: This is for the event Fall of an Engineer on Friday at Gamma+2. If I have misrepresented anyone's actions please let me know. Thank you Derenzis for running this event.