He sent the message at 06:44.
He entered the service lane at 06:57.
He threw the jar at 06:58.
The timeline was too clean for impulse.
Cacau’s attorney tried to argue panic.
The timeline argued preparation.
Origi testified on the fourth day.
He wore his dress uniform and kept his answers tight. The prosecutor asked about the false delay attempts, his launch timeline, the moment the paint struck, and the confrontation. Origi did not embellish. He did not try to make himself look calmer than he was.
“When you left the cockpit, what was your intent?” the prosecutor asked.
“To stop him from doing anything else to the aircraft.”
“Were you angry?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he had a grenade?”
“No.”
“What did you think when he produced it?”
Origi paused.
“I thought he had planned for me to be standing exactly where I was.”
That answer quieted the room.
“Why?”
“Because if I had stayed in the cockpit, he only had paint on glass. If I came down angry, he had a confrontation. Once he had a confrontation, he could pull the grenade and turn the entire launch into chaos.”
The prosecutor let the answer sit before asking, “Do you believe you were the actual target?”
Origi looked toward Cacau.
“No. I was the tool he needed to break the chain.”
The defense cross-examined him aggressively.
“You grabbed my client by the collar.”
“Yes.”
“You drove him backward.”
“Yes.”
“You were furious.”
“Yes.”
“You lost control.”
Origi looked at the attorney.
“No.”
“You don’t call leaving a cockpit and grabbing a man by the collar losing control?”
“I call it a reaction. Losing control would have meant I stopped seeing the aircraft, the crew, the runway, and the risk. I saw all of it.”
The attorney leaned in.
“And yet you put hands on him.”
“Yes.”
“Because your pride was hurt.”
Origi’s face hardened.
“Because he blinded a windshield before takeoff on a military aircraft carrying protected evidence.”
The attorney tried to move on quickly.
But the answer had done what it needed to do.
It returned the room to the aircraft.
Not Origi’s pride.
Not Cacau’s performance.
The aircraft.
The evidence.
The reason.
General Sloane testified behind partial closed-session restrictions because some details remained sensitive. Even with limitations, her testimony changed the entire tone of the hearing. She explained the protected report from the junior inspector, the disappearing serial number record, the Mesa Crown irregularities, the decision to move evidence under direct command authority, and the repeated attempts to delay Flight Copper Nine.
She did not raise her voice once.
She did not need to.
The defense tried to suggest she had used Origi as bait.
Sloane’s eyes moved slowly toward the attorney.
“I used Captain Origi as a pilot.”
“You knew the flight was at risk.”
“I knew the evidence was at risk.”
“You allowed him to proceed.”
“I ordered additional monitoring, secured his launch line, and preserved the original timeline because changing it would have confirmed to the compromised network that their interference was working.”
“So you expected someone to act?”
“I expected the network to expose pressure points.”
“And Cacau did.”
“Yes.”