ADDENDUM 2:
USCM INTERNAL AFFAIRS INCIDENT RECORD.
CODENAME: THE OLIVER INCIDENT.
DATE OF INCIDENT: 09/11/2190
Final Report notes:
[Bellow is a detailed report of an in-depth analysis of the OLIVER incident. We have scoured an on-board AI data logs, relevant sensor information and personal interviews available and recreated a narrative of the incident, appended with commentary and relevant information. My notes are in these brackets and will , of course, be removed from the official version of this report.]
The Oliver incident took part during Operation [REDACTED] and refers to the crippling of the USS Oliver by the USS Persephone followed by a boarding and aggressive takedown and removal of the Oliver’s CO, Major [REDACTED].
The USS Persephone, under Major [REDACTED] was one of the first ships to respond and has prepared the initial recon report before the primary responding ship, the Armed Troop Carrier USS Oliver, arrived in the system. Bellow is the key information in this report, compiled by the ships effective second in command at the time Cassandra Reed:
“All inbound and outbound information suggests that this was indeed a CLF operation, however unlike what the distress beacon may lead us to believe, the transition of power occurred mostly peacefully, and no personnel have been harmed. The colony itself is now transmitting a general broadband call to any approaching vessels, identifying itself as a ‘Free’ world and declaring their willingness to negotiate the safe return of planeside personnel with any USMC, RESS or UPP vessels.”
The USS Oliver, under the command of Major [REDACTED] arrives in the system shortly thereafter, marking the beginning of Operation [REDACTED] and begins to wake its marine detachments while still under the assumption that it is responding in force to an insurrection. High Command contacts the Oliver 4 minutes into the Operation, ordering the ship into high orbit and cancels the force response order, but no response is ever received.
Both the Oliver and Persephone start moving towards the planet and the two ships in its orbit. A preliminary scan performed by the Persephone indicates that a local CLF faction has retrofitted two civilian transports to work as gunboats and sent them as a show of support to the cells on the planet. The Persephone attempts to stop and hail the ships, but is almost immediately rammed by the Oliver and pushed out of the way, suffering a temporary power failure, and critically injuring two crew members including the CO. The Oliver opens fire on the makeshift gunboats moments later and destroys both ships. The only acknowledgment of the Persephone being rammed is an open channel message from its now acting commander, Cassandra Reed:
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Oliver? Why are you firing on them? Oliver?”
The Persephone continues to spiral in near orbit for a good 15 minutes while the Oliver sets itself up in geostationary orbit right above the capital of the planet and starts preparing its marine deployment. At no moment does the ship crew of the Oliver acknowledge the ramming incident or acknowledge the change in operation plan. A later investigation of comm logs recovered form the Oliver suggests that while the message from HC and comms from the Persephone were received by Major [REDACTED], they were disregarded completely.
As the Persephone recovers from the crash, Acting Commander Reed sends out a simple dispatch to High Command:
“USS Persephone was rammed by the USS Oliver which resulted to catastrophic failure to parts of the ship and has left Major [REDACTED] incapacitated, leaving me in charge. The surviving crew have successfully stabilized the ship. The Operation now seems in jeopardy. The Oliver is preparing for a full force response on the planet. It has already opened fire on and destroyed two vessels that did not seem to be hostile. The ship needs to be pulled back, now, if we want to maintain any semblance of a light touch and maybe not have these people hate us for the next five generations.”
On-board comm logs of the Persephone show that Reed was way less courteous to the crew of the Oliver while talking to her own people and her comments are virtually unprintable due to the amount of profanity they contain.
The Oliver is sent another message from High Command ordering it to withdraw immediately, which is again ignored. Multiple marine squads are deployed to the planet, landing right outside the main Colony, and preparing to siege the local forces. Communication intercepted from the planet by the Persephone indicate that the local government has attempted to reach out multiple times to the approaching Marine force but was again ignored.
The first instance of the Oliver using any sort of communication is it transferring a generic “stand down and submit” message literal minutes before the marines begin to engage CLF forces on the planet.
[Reed specifically asked for me to point out during our interview, that while all official reports of this incident indicate a CLF presence on the planet and that is certainly true per the Persephone’s SIGINT data, most of the forces the Marines engaged were in fact colonists protecting their own homes from an invading force that refused to listen to them. Reed was somewhat furious with official reports classifying this as a CLF engagement.]
About 35 minutes into the operation, the Oliver fires its Orbital Cannon Array onto the colony. The Persephone records this shot firing a cluster payload right onto the middle of the capital. This would be devastating enough on its own, but the Oliver’s CO, Major [REDACTED] was always a big fan of orbital bombardment and had the Oliver fitted with an array of six OB cannons. All six cannons are fired in rapid succession.
[The data analyst has stressed that we put in Reed’s statement on the Orbital Cannon incident verbatim in full and I agree. Here it is in full:
“Do you know what it is to have front and center seating to a colony being glassed? Because we sure fucking do and it’s… Something. We were still barely functional at this point, but our systems were still spoofing their satellites. First, the flurry of activity related to repelling the invading Marines was interrupted by an almost unified scream, then this… Silence.”]
Shortly after the OB was fired, Reed sends an emergency high speed communication to High Command: “THE OLIVER JUST GLASSED THE FUCKING CAPITAL AND FUCKED THIS OP TO HELL. I AM PUTTING AN END TO THIS, NOW.”
[This is generous compared to what Reed actually called the Oliver AND High Command in a face-to-face conversation on the Persephone. The profanity of that woman. I think by now she was swearing in multiple languages.]
Two minutes later, the Persephone finally manages to get its engines working again and immediately starts moving towards the Oliver, marking the beginning of the Oliver Incident proper. By now Reed has, willingly or not, taken command of its crew and her burning anger at the Oliver seems to have rallied the Persephone firmly behind her back.
The Persephone fired a total of 11 shots from its high powered, precision EM Pulse cannon at 46 minutes into the operation. The targets were, according to Reed:
“We fired four shots at the engine, effectively disabling the Oliver and forcing it into geostationary, one at the OB Array which was the only part of the ship that was EM Shielded, or rather the only place where the Oliver’s crew remembered to power up the EM displacement arrays they had installed. Three shots towards the ships engineering to crack it open, kill its power long enough so we could approach without being blown up. Two towards what we identified as the most likely spot for the shipside MP barracks, denying them access to arms by frying their emergency lockers. Finally one dead center into the CIC. Just because I wanted to fire on that fucker. I don’t think it did much, but boy did it announce my intent.”
It should be noted that while Reed has received official authorization to disable the Oliver, it did not come until AFTER the Persephone fired on the carrier.
The Persephone then flies from the aft of the Oliver, attaches itself at the bottom of the ship with its boarding umbilical and breaches the ship. Reed orders all the Marines and most of the Engineers on the ship to breach, armed mostly with non-lethal weapons. She splits them into three groups.
The first strike team makes for the OB array with a load of C4 to permanently disable it. This group was probably the messiest, as they encountered a few MTs in the Array, preparing to reload the cannon. A firefight ensued, during which a welder tank was damaged, leaked fuel near the OB ammunition and then exploded, callusing a chain reaction that literally tore one of the OB cannons straight off the hull of the Oliver. While two of the Persephone’s Marines and one MT is wounded in this explosion, this team pulled everyone to safety before the actual explosion and after providing emergency treatment to all wounded, proceeds to complete its second objective - locking down the Oliver’s hangar as a failsafe in case the second team is unable to complete its objective.
The second strike team travels through the ships maintenance tunnels towards its engineering section, disables the staff there with flashbangs and cuffs, then heads straight for the comm array of the Oliver and promptly disables it by releasing a custom logic virus into the comm relay. It then moves towards the AI chamber and the few Engineers that are in this group promptly override the AI with an iteration of their own HADES system.
HADES, now in control of the ship, proceeds to lock down segments of the ship, making sure that movement of medical and critical personnel remains unhindered, but otherwise sealing off any crewmembers of the ship that may be a deterrent for Reed’s team.
As these two objectives are completed, the Persephone herself detaches from the ship and is flown by its skeleton crew towards the CIC, preparing to create an extraction point for the shipside teams.
At least one marine Squad from the Oliver takes back off form the planet, seeking to investigate the sudden comm silence. They are however unable to leave the locked down hangar and have to breach every airlock, emergency shutter, and lockdown gate the ship has to get anywhere other than the medbay of the Oliver.
The third team, led by Reed personally, reached the CIC and once the HADES override is initialized, gains entry and prepares an aggressive breach into the Oliver’s CIC. The squad enters the CIC from al four corners, deploys flashbangs and proceeds to secure the CO. While disabling most of the bridge crew, the CO themselves was covered by the ships CMP and was not disabled during breaching.
The CO and CMP open fire with lethal weaponry, the CMP led to believe this was a CLF attack team, but are interrupted by Reed, who used the initial strike for a mad dash towards the CIC’s central console and lunging straight at the CMP. A few punches followed but were interrupted by 3 shots fired off by the CO. Two of these strike the CMP, effectively taking them out of combat. One hits Reed, but this seems only to anger her more as she dives for the CO and sends them flying both flying through the reinforced glass pane of the CIC central console. Reed then applies approximately 9 shocks from a modified stun baton, each one followed by a string of profanities and a kick, before finally cuffing the CO as her team secures the rest of the bridge crew and stabilizes the Oliver’s CMP.
22 minutes after the initial breach of the Oliver, the Persephone strike teams evacuate through a hole in the CO’s quarters. For whatever reason, on her way out, Reed also secures the Oliver’s CO’s pet. It should be noted that while she claims she surrendered the pet when reconnecting with High Command, no record of it seems to exist.
The Oliver Incident concludes, leaving the USS Oliver crippled, unable to fire its OB, with an AI that no longer responds to them, and without its CO. Shortly thereafter, the CMP, contacted by HC separately and now effectively the aCO of the ship, calls for a general retreat of ground forces.
10 minutes later the first MP support ship, ordered in my HC after Reed’s messages, arrives in the system, and officially orders all hostilities to stop. Operation [REDACTED] is now over, effectively crippled by the Persephone and her crew.
Reed surrenders herself and the Oliver’s CO immediately upon the ship’s arrival, taking full responsibility for the attack on the Oliver and is formally arrested as well, which lead to this very investigation.
INCIDENT REPORT ENDS.