STARFLEET PERSONNEL FILE: BALLARD, KEATON
SERIAL NUMBER: tba

Current Assignment: Ensign, Counseling Officer, USS Yorktown NCC-1704

Ensign Keaton Ballard graduated Starfleet Academy on stardate 6606.29 with a Military Science degree. He received a Commendation with Valor Scroll for his impressive performance in apprehending three members of the Orion Syndicate on Nin'Yend on 6701.06. He is a member of a Prime Team consisting of himself, Lt. JG Kagiso Mkele, E. Aura Putar, and Lt. JG Atilla Vörösign, and occasionally E. Hugo Alpheaus and Lt. JG Spark Lynn.

AWARDS

Keaton Ballard is played by BC.

I was assigned as part of a team sent to a section of the station on Planet Camus II. Ensign Aura Putar lead the group consisting of myself, Ensign GJ (Dr) Sparkle Lynn, and Ensign Attilla Vorosing. Once we had materialized at our assigned area of the station we saw that the computer had sustained physical blunt-force damage, that Ensign Putar quickly and capably fixed, She was able to temporarily reroute power such that the Celebium shielding was protecting the station within acceptable parameters.

The team noticed blue stains of organic material on the housing and conduits in our section. Dr. Lynn identified the material as silver-based blood. I ran a quick diagnostic at the terminal to determine at what points and to what degree the Celebium shielding had failed. The diagnostic revealed a slight decrease then recovery in shield efficiency followed shortly by a catastrophic failure.

At this point, approximately 5 to 7 minutes after landing, our party was attacked by a group of primitives using bow-and-arrows. They fired one arrow with enough efficacy to hit Ensign Vorosing in the left arm. I performed a Tricorder scan (attached) to identify the composition and location of the aggressors. Ensign Lynn quckly and ably administered first aid such that Vorosing and myself were able to return fire using stunning phasers. Neither myself or Vorosing hit the primitives.

Ensign Putar contacted command who instructed the party to withdraw to cover, then request transportation back to the Yorkville, which we did.

If the primitives were indigenous, Star Fleet must not have known of them or else this installation would never have been constructed in clear violation of the Prime Directive. If the primitives were NOT indigenous then that suggests they are far more technically advanced than their garb and weaponry suggests. In either case, using phasers to defend the team when we were in clear-and-present danger did not further violate the Prime Directive.

Later, the same team was sent to secure a section, and return any primitives to the far side of a natural chasm bordering the station. We beamed down behind the cover of a rock, concealing us from a group of 4 primitives approaching the station from the chasm.

Vorosing suggested we adopt a strategy whereby myself and Vorosing would each grapple with a primitive, allowing Lynn or Putar to inject the restrained primitive with a strong sedative. Working together, we were able to sedate 3 of the 4 primitives in short order, the 4th fleeing towards the chasm.

We transported the 3 incapacitated primitives to the far side of the chasm after a full Tricorder scan (attached).

We pursued. the 4th (and presumed leader given he was the only primitive to vocalize what clearly seemed to be orders, and he was physically largest) to the chasm where he climbed down the nearest face and then across a rope bridge to the far side. We made a show of aggression in sight of him, throwing the weapons and shields of his companions into the chasm. Dr. Lynn noticed a cave in the near face, a Tricorder scan revealed a natural cavern with 8 humanoid life forms inside. Vorosing requested and received 2 canisters of sleeping gas. We tied off Vorosing and belayed him to the cave mouth where he went inside and was able to incapacitate 7 of the 8 humanoids. I defer to Vorosing's report for detailed descriptions of this humanoid and the interior of the cavern.

The 7 incapacitated primitives were presumably transported to the far side of the chasm. Vorosing and Lynn destroyed the rope bridge and the party returned to the Yorkville. I believe the missions were successful. Additionally, I'm pleased to observe what I feel to be Star Fleet's practical flexibility in applying the Prime Directive.

I was assigned to an Away Team lead by Ens. Vorisign, along with Ljg Sparkle Lynn, Ens Aura Puter, Ens. Kagiso Mkeli.  Our assignment was to meet up with OOA Liaison Something Something, with the goals of  1)  Study the indigenous "deepie" species - classified as an "aggressive animal" by OOA 2)   something else I can't recall 3) develop a Deepie EWS. After beaming down within the OOA HQ building, we went to a local transport hub to take public shuttle to The Ozarks to investigate a site of a recent Deepie attack.

After the OOA LIason briefed us in, Mkeli intimated that she felt he was not being truthful and may be actively misleading or misinforming of us. Showing an abundance of caution, the team dispersed throughout the bus. Vorisign sat in the rear. Puter and Lynn sat in the middle. I sat in the front row, port side, isle seat. Most of the passengers appeared openly welcoming and welcoming to the Star Fleet presence on the craft. However, I observed several passengers exhibiting different behavior. Specifically, there were 5 passengers that seemed furtive, reserved and/or clearly wary. I tried to sit next to one of these, a human woman, who sat in the front row however I was directed to sit elsewhere by a male Vulcan who appeared, if not hostile, then certainly nonplussed by the presence of a StarFleet Officer.

I sat next to a tall outwardly imposing human male also exhibiting the stated non-receptive behavior. I tried to engage him in friendly conversation in an attempt to determine the source of his discomfort.  I was unable to elicit any response beyond non-verbals and monosyllables. Not long after take off the Human Female mentioned above rose to ostensibly go to the head. Puter rose to follow her. Once the female was out-of-sight the Vulcan, the man next to me, and 2 humans at the rear of the craft rose and brandished handheld weapons, pointing them at the passengers, and the Away Team.

The Vulcan stated words-to-the-effect of "Stay calm no-one will get hurt". It was my judgement that the Vulcan was in a leadership position and that by engaging and distracting or disabling him would disrupt the command-and-control structure of the hijackers, or at a minimum cause a distraction that my comrades would take advantage of to gain control of the situation.

As I rose to tackle the Vulcan some few feet to my right, I heard the pulse of a Type II Phaser set to Stun come from the rear of the craft. I was able to tackle the Vulcan, falling into the slightly rescued egress/ingress ramp for the craft. At this point my awareness of the tactical situation in the rest of the shuttle is sketchy as I was engaged in a tussle with the Vulcan. At one point I observed the Large Human who had been seated next to me standing above us with a weapon trained on me. I felt a feint or distraction would afford me the opportunity to maintain combat effectiveness and provide a possible opening for a Team Member to gain an advantage. So I made a show of looking behind him and shouted "Ensign, NO!" with as much conviction as I could muster. It did distract him, to what effect I'm not sure as I was once again engaged in hand-to-hand grappling with the Vulcan.

Some moments later, the Vulcan broke free from me only to be stunned by a well-placed shot from Ensign Vorisgn. I dis-armed the Vulcan and also recovered his ID (given to the Duty Officer upon our return to ship).  I was able to see the Ens. Puter and Vorisgn had the pilot cabin under control. So, I returned to passenger cabin and assisted with dis-arming and restraining the hijackers. I then positioned myself a discrete distance from the cabin door and the passenger compartment so as to be to observe the passengers and restrained hijackers as well as be able to assist the others in the pilot cabin.

I had to restraint the OOA Liaison from entering the cabin, despite his vociferous protestations. The Team learned that the hijackers were attempting to force a Starfleet Away team to an "unmolested, un-staged" Deepie encounter location to learn "what was really going on". Vorisgn made (the correct, in my opinion) call to commandeer the ship and investigate this site.

We landed were the hijackers instructed. I suggested we allow the OOA Liaison to accompany the Away Team to the site. I stayed in the bus, to guard the hijackers and the curious, and remarkably and admirably understanding civilian passengers. After approximately 10 minutes the OOA Liaison ran onto the ship, out-of-breath, frightened, agitated demanding that we take-off immediately. Shortly thereafter the remainder the away team, along with 2 new civilians who must have been on-site already all came aboard. I took piloted the bus, rising to a hover so we could observe a group of Deepies who had attacked the team.

The creatures displayed, to my eyes, behavior consistent with intelligent social animals acting in concert with a common goal. Decidedly not the behavior of more simple aggressive pack animals.  Ens. Vorisgn directed me to fly the bus to back to our point of origin, and not to our original destination of Ozarks.

We returned to the Yorktown and debriefed. The information collected strongly suggested that Starfleet had been purposely mislead about the true nature of the Deepie species by the OOA. Evidence that the Deepies are sapient had been suppressed in order to ensure unrestricted access to the natural resource wealth of the planet.

The next day we were redeployed aboard a submersible shuttle craft to confirm and act upon information collected by data collection bouys deployed around the main landmass. This information further corroborated our suspicion that the Deepies are NOT simple animals but are sapient.  Our patrol was uneventful for many hours when we happened upon what appeared to be a family group of Deepies, a larger 'male' a smaller 'female' and smaller still "child" deepie. The "father" took up a clearly protective posture when they became aware of our presence. Ens. Mkeli was able to communicate with the now clearly intelligent and sapient creatures. The details of this conversation were recorded and attached to this report.

With OOA's duplicitous behavior  exposed. We were immediately redeployed to the OOA HQ to install intelligence gathering equipment in order to determine the extent of the cover-up.  Our work was completed quickly and efficiently. We returned to the Yorktown again.