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Stardate 93611.4
Security Level 2: Restricted
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Sir,
As requested, I have completed a thorough, line-by-line review of the logs of the Vanguard, Axiom, and San Jacinto in an attempt to determine the most likely answers to the questions of how Admiral Ashkeph evaded detection when she (1) left the bridge of the Vanguard, then (2) boarded a shuttle on the Axiom, and (3) finally departed without prior clearance; all actions which were unopposed by any member of the officers and crew there present.
I believe that I have discovered what likely transpired. A report of my findings follows.
I. Situation whilst docked at DS-13
Following the mission briefing at DS-13, Admiral Ashkeph embarked upon Vanguard. Security aboard the station was much tighter than usual in response to orders I had given to ensure that the departure of the Irreo would proceed without disturbance. In addition, I was in the transporter room when key personnel beamed to the three ships which comprised the task force. Regardless of whether personnel arrived to the ships on foot via docking hatches, or by transporter, there is nothing anomalous about the transporter and docking logs for any of the ships. The logs are complete and match exactly with the records on DS-13, and there is no evidence whatsoever of tampering.
II. Situation en route to Echomet
All three ships' logs contain no suspicious entries until they were under way to Echomet. Then, at ship's time index 20:32:44, the logs of the Vanguard contain the first indication that Admiral Ashkeph was putting her plan into motion. According to on-duty personnel tracking information, Ashkeph entered the Captain's ready room for the ostensible purpose of conducting vital and sensitive communications with the Starfleet Diplomatic Corps.
After arriving in the ready room, Admiral Ashkeph wasted no time: at time index 20:33:15, she accessed the master panel on the desk and used her admiralty command codes to restrict notifications.
It is worth noting that by restricting notifications, these and all subsequent actions were carried out without being displayed on any of the consoles manned by Vanguard personnel. This means that her actions, although automatically logged, would not be visible at all except in a forensic review of the logs themselves. Moreover, only deactivation (whether by catastrophic systems damage or a level one diagnostic of the log system itself) could interrupt the notification mode, eventualities which were exceedingly unlikely to happen during transit--a risk that Admiral Ashkeph likely calculated and considered acceptable.
After gaining access with her command codes, Admiral Ashkeph accessed the Vanguard's Master Command Database. At 20:33:21 she inserted an isolinear chip, from which she transferred a complete set of command instructions (including, but not limited to, a simulation protocol) and a database containing geographic, topographic, and demographic information about Echomet, which I had been involved in creating per orders (included in my earlier communique to you). At 20:33:53, this transfer was complete, and Admiral Ashkeph continued to use the console, accessing different parts of her program, and connecting it to the communcation protocols (for reasons explained below). She completed her preparation and logged off of the console at 20:37:41. The entire process had taken just under five minutes from the time at which she entered the room. It is possible that Admiral Ashkeph practised the entire process in simulation, but this is speculation.
The program itself was comprised of a complex set of simulation instructions, some of which had separate orders from the Admiral included as addendums. These additional orders were automatically added to any bridge command given to launch vessels. Commands to launch additional auxiliary vessels during the simulation had appended to them these extra documents in the form of orders signed by the Admiral indicating that 'this is a drill', and that no actual launch was necesssary. Instead, pilots and crew were engaged in war games mode at their stations, but none were actually launched.
The executable for the program was the Echomet database itself. When Admiral Ashkeph opened communications with the Axiom and San Jacinto, asking them to receive the Echomet database, she was actually transferring a set of networking and command instructions which, when the database was activated on those ships, networked them to the Vanguard and tied them into the same simulation operating within the same parameters. As a result, no personnel aboard the Axiom or San Jacinto were made aware of the true nature of what was transpiring. This complex operation required the communication systems to remain interlinked, and the START code (discussed below) also required the communication system to listen for intiation. Consequently, this represented another risk, although, as with the log system, it was a very minor one. As long as all three ships remained within real-time communication range, and as long as the core communication system of the Vanguard remained online, Ashkeph's program would operate correctly.
At time index 22:41:05, shortly before the estimated arrival time, Admiral Ashkeph transmitted the Echomet database to the Axiom and the San Jacinto.
III. Situation after arrival
The task force exited warp and proceeded to Echomet. The log and communication entries here need no explanation. However, at time index 23:07:19, shortly after entering orbit of Echomet, a START command was remotely issued to the Vanguard Master Command Database. This command activated Admiral Ashkeph's set of command instructions for all three ships, instantly placing them in a linked simulation mode based on the instructions in the program. It is impossible to determine how this command was issued, although it could have been as simple as an innocuous use of her combadge, if she had modified it for that purpose. Such a remote communication device would not be difficult to construct or conceal, in any case.
From this point onward, the log of the Vanguard shows evidence of tampering. A whole section of the log has been completely wiped and overwritten with junk data, although Forensics were able to recover some of the information. Once it was evident that the deleted entries were transporter records, Forensics analyzed the transporter buffer, allowing us to reconstruct events with a reasonable degree of certainty.
Approximately thirty seconds after the first Undine portal opened (i.e. at a time index near 23:08:30), a Master Database command to all of the Vanguard's transporter rooms suspended regular transport functions and prevented abort of the command sequence. This was evidently part of Admiral Ashkeph's program. Almost immediately thereafter, all transporters began automatically locking on to crates from the cargo bay and initiating rapid transport to various coordinates on Echomet Prime. The program was designed with a high degree of efficiency, allowing for the execution of an average of 1,500 transports per minute--an impressive technical accomplishment.
The deletions from the transporter logs make exact figures and the times of events somewhat a matter of approximation and conjecture. However, one thing is certain: after the transports above were complete, the penultimate transport contained a significantly more massive deliverable than any of the preceding transports, which had all been of uniform mass. Then, the final transport was much less massive, and to the same coordinates. Both of these were to a position in space at maximum range for the transporters.
Based on this, my conjecture is that the final transport was the Admiral herself, from the Vanguard to the shuttle aboard the Axiom. At this time, there is insufficient remaining evidence to determine the nature of the penultimate transport.
IV. Conclusions
Based on a thorough review of the logs of DS-13 and the three ships in the task force, it is my conclusion that the officers and crew of the Vanguard, Axiom, and San Jacinto could not have detected Admiral Ashkeph's actions until it was too late, except through statistically unlikely happenstances that did not, in fact, transpire. Consequently, it is my further conclusion that the logs provide no evidence of direct assistance, whether deliberate (i.e. collusion) or accidental (i.e. negligence) , to the Admiral's actions.
//SIGNED//
Commander Caspius
Executive Officer, Deep Space 13