Rick Shale was born on the USS Thor to it's first officer, Commander Henry Shale. His mother died when he was just three years old. At the age of thirteen, Rick was sent to live with his grandparents on Earth. While there he did well in life by excelling at all that he did. At the age of sixteen, Rick's father now in command of the USS Crazy Horse was killed by the Borg at Wolf 359.

A year later Rick applied for StarFleet Academy and was accepted. There he followed in his father's footsteps and graduated in 2371 at the top of his class.

His first posting was on Deep Space 9 as a security officer. While there, he was tricked by Quark into allowing a shipment of illegal weapons onboard and then to make matters worse Quark made it look as if Ensign Shale had accepted bribes during the time he was onboard DS9.

Captain Sisko believed the young Ensign, but warned him of what this would do to his record if he stayed in StarFleet. In 2372, Rick resigned from StarFleet with no idea what to do then decided to take out his anger on the Cardassians and became a member of the Maquis.

During the extermination of the Maquis, Shale barely escaped back into the Federation. His anger now swelled inside of him and he wanted revenge for those atrocities, so he decided to rejoin StarFleet as a Petty Officer.

During the Dominion War he flew in Attack Squadron six with such prejudice that it was lucky that the Jem'Hadar, once engaged, survived their "entanglement" with him.

Before the last battle, Rick Shale was pulled out of the front lines and ordered to return to Earth. There he was ordered to train new pilots at the Academy where he stayed for nine years until Admiral McCaffee assigned him to the Leviathan-A with the rank of Senior Chief.

After spending many months aboard the Leviathan as a non-commissioned officer, Captain Devore promoted Shale to the rank of Lieutenant.

Also during his time aboard Leviathan he has grown close to Janet Gordon, an Operations officer. They were engaged, intending to get married as soon as the Leviathan returned to the Alpha quadrant. However, Gordon was killed when the USS Leviathan collided with another vessel whilst attempting to travel through an inter-dimensional wormhole.

Lieutenant Shale was killed when the runabout he was piloting back to Earth was destroyed by forces unknown.