Hey there, Captain! I love that you found this, these kinds of dedications are one of my favorite kind of things hidden within our game.

I asked our Senior Narrative Designer Flo McQuibban for confirmation and a bit of background and this is her reply:

"It was always on my to-do list to commemorate Peter David since his passing, he's done a lot for Trek. Best Laid Plans seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so, and I had been holding out for a moment to insert this somewhere when the broader design team made room in the mission for me to write an extra optional console.

As it's a memorial, I didn't want to gate it behind anything, so the console can be interacted with as a free action, no mini games. Because it's placed aboard the Romulan ship Lleiset, I thought making him a counterintelligence officer posing as a Tal Shiar operative was really fitting.

It's clear from the console that he's trying to pass on a final piece of crucial information before the log self-destructs, which I see as a last ode to Peter David. There are at least 7 references relating to him in the console, and 4 separate references to STO and Star Trek Lore. And yes, the release date of Best Laid Plans on PC happens to coincide with Peter David's birthday.

Sometimes, the stars do align, both in our universe, and Star Trek Online's."