Starwalker

Chief of Security's log, 09:26, 4 August 2213
Location: Intersystem between the Corvus FTL corridor and the JOP
Status: Sublight transit

Chief Gail Cameron, reporting on the Lou Tripi situation. Verify credentials.

Identity verified.
Credentials verified.

Good.

Lou Tripi was arrested on 7th July and placed in the Starwalker‘s brig. She has been charged with sabotage, contract violation, hacking a personal system, assault with deadly intent, and using an unregistered weapon. It’s possible that weapon was also illegal, but I’ll leave that charge up to the Judiciary to lay at her feet.

She has received the appropriate meals and medical care during her incarceration. Due to the sabotage charge, she has been denied access to any ship’s systems, including entertainment. She has been provided with a disconnected digisheet to record her statement on.

My staff and I have attempted to question her several times about her actions and any other parties involved. She has admitted to infecting Chief Elliott Monaghan with an implant worm with the knowledge that it might kill him. Insert the first log.

Recording: 12:45, 10 July 2213

CAMERON: (standing before an energy barrier in the brig that has been constructed in a cargo bay) You have confessed to hacking Monaghan’s cerebral implant and inserting a worm. There’s no point denying it now.

LOU TRIPI: (seated inside the barrier and glaring up at the tall woman) Only because of this. (She lifts a braced forearm. Her other arm is also braced, and bound across her chest to immobilise her broken elbow. There’s a plastiskin patch on her cheek where she was burned.)

CAMERON: You knew it would kill him.

TRIPI: I knew it might. I had no idea what it would do to him.

CAMERON: Then why do it?

TRIPI: (shrugs awkwardly) I was bored. Thought it might be interesting.

CAMERON: You’re not stupid enough to break the law on a whim. We haven’t been out here long enough for deep space psychosis to set in. You wanted him out of the way: why?

TRIPI: I didn’t like the way he looked at me.

She knows the system well enough to know how to mind her words; she’s admitting nothing other than what we’ve already got on her. SecOffs Brasco and Pashtuhov are taking turns at questioning her, but she’s keeping to her story so far. She’s a well-trained liar and I don’t think she’ll make a mistake; the only way she’ll tell us any more will be if she thinks she has nothing else to lose. Or something worse to lose.

She won’t answer any questions about the sabotage committed against the ship’s AI, or about the death of our first pilot, Danika Devon. Insert the second log.

Recording: 18:42, 17 July 2213

TYLER PASTUHOV: (lounging on a chair, one leg dangling over the arm with its foot bouncing) You must have thought you were so smart, fooling all of us like that.

TRIPI: (sitting upright on her chair behind the energy barrier, her arms still braced and bound) What do you mean? (Her eyes narrow.)

TYLER: We never suspected that anything had been done to the chair. I mean, malfunctions, they happen. That was a nice piece of work.

TRIPI: I still have no idea what you’re talking about. What chair?

TYLER: Oh, come on. You know. The pilot’s chair; the one that killed Danika.

TRIPI: (widening her eyes) You think someone did that on purpose?

TYLER: (sighs and swings his leg down, sitting more upright) More dissembling, Loulou? Hasn’t there been enough of that? (He looks at her sadly.) We already know what happened.

TRIPI: (coolly) Then you already know I had nothing to do with it.

She took to her training well. I wouldn’t have hired her otherwise, but that only makes all of this more difficult.

All of the physical evidence has been packaged up. There is the cable from the pilot’s chair that Monaghan discovered and the implant worm that Starwalker has corralled in one of her service drones. Copies of the various viruses and renegade protocols from the ship’s systems have been placed into offline storage. They are not complete – most of them were damaged or destroyed when the ship’s AI forced herself back online – but there should be something for the analysts to put together.

Her personal belongings have been catalogued and packaged securely as evidence, though we couldn’t find anything damning in them. That’s to be expected; the last place she’d keep anything incriminating is in her quarters.

The most difficult part of this has been trying to attach a motive to Tripi’s actions. It’s clear that she has been acting on behalf of an external agency, though we have no way of knowing which one. Hopefully an examination of her off-ship communications and financial details will tell us more, but we won’t be able to delve into any of that until we reach the JOP. At that point, the Judiciary will take over the case and it’ll be out of our hands.

I believe the attack on the pilot led directly to the pirate attack; when Devon was killed, we were forced to return to the JOP for repairs and a new pilot. While we were there, Tripi could easily have relayed the name of the system where we had been conducting the tests to her employers. When we returned to that system (Corsica), there was a trap waiting for us and we were attacked by three pirate ships of unknown origin. We avoided capture when the ship’s AI took us to another system.

After the attack failed, the focus of the sabotage seems to have been on disabling the AI. Even attacking Monaghan fits into that pattern; he was helping the AI fight the sabotaging viruses off.

Was Tripi going to attempt to repeat the ploy? Inform her employers of our next destination while we were reloading the AI at the JOP? She would have had no way to know which system we might try next, though it’s possible that she was gambling on it being decided before we left the station again.

It seems to fit, but it feels too simplistic. Tripi is an intelligent foe – another reason I hired her – and she seldom tries the same thing twice. Even with a wild card like our AI removed, she should have tried a new tactic. There’s something that we’re missing and I’m not sure what it is.

Perhaps it’s her confidence that is too incongruous for comfort; she is far too calm for someone in her current position. She hasn’t broken down once since the doctor gave her painkillers for her injuries. She hasn’t tried to make any kind of deal. She doesn’t seem concerned at all; she’s just waiting for the next step.

Whatever it is, we cannot afford to relax our guard. She is a threat as long as she remains on this ship and there is no evidence that she was working alone. I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of this matter. I look forward to the day when I can hand all of this over to the Judiciary.

I am convinced of her guilt beyond any doubt.

Chief of Security, out.