Calleja, Mara

PRC	STAR FLEET PERSONNEL COMMAND FILE  SECURITY RATING 3, CONFIDENTIAL

Mara Calleja
Career Occupation
Position:	Security Officer
Assignment:	USS Artemis, EX-11000
Rank:	Lieutenant
Time on Site:
Biographical Attributes
Full Name:	Mara Calleja
Species:	Human
Gender:	Female
Height:	188 cm (6 ft. 2 in.)	Weight:	95.3 kg (210 lb.)
Eye Color:	Rich hazel
Hair Color:	Chestnut brown
Hairstyle:	Usually kept roughly shoulder-length, but Mara likes to mess with it and change her style on a regular basis.
Physique:	The word ‘Amazonian’ is often used and it’s a fair description. She possesses a natural easy grace with none of the awkwardness that can come with her height.
Complexion:	A rich caramel.
Voice:	She has a rough urban accent that can sound almost musical sometimes, and a turn of phrase that can make a Marine blush.
Affiliation:	United Federation of Planets
Homeworld:	Bandar IV
Birthplace:	Bandar City
Born:	239300.00	Age:	29
Familial Relationships
Father:	Michael Calleja
Mother:	Vera Calleja
Status of Parents:	Alive and well and living in Bandar City.
Siblings:	Older sister Vik, deceased.
Marital Status:	Single

Personal History

Mara Calleja was born on Bandar IV, a heavily-industrialised and independent world, and grew up in the sprawling metropolis Bandar City. Like most of the planet’s population she was raised in abject poverty and had to fight to survive from a very early age.

Going to school in such a harsh environment was a lesson in and of itself, but Mara was determined to learn. Her parents supported her wherever they could but they weren’t around as much as they wanted to be, her mother working long shifts as a designer in a nearby textile factory and her father an operative for a defence contractor who was frequently sent out for days at a time. Vik, Mara’s older sister, embraced the gang culture that was absolutely endemic throughout Bandar City and ran away from home to join the Hellcats, but Mara fought her own corner to stay independent. She was a warm-hearted and caring child, someone who wanted the best for people, and even at a tender age she did her best to keep her friends out of gangs. It wasn’t an easy call, and it was so much harder to be neutral. She couldn’t wear her hair in certain styles. Some gangs ‘claimed’ certain colours of clothing, so she had to avoid those. Tattoos fascinated her but they were synonymous with gangs, so she couldn’t have any. But she was stubborn and determined, and with her father teaching her how to fight properly, she made it work.

Whilst Calleja wanted nothing to do with gang violence, ultimately it caught up with her. She was 15 when her sister was killed in a dispute over territory. Vik’s murder was about sending a message to the gang, so it was a particularly violent and gruesome death even by Bandaran standards. It shook Mara to her core. She questioned everything she had ever believed in and came perilously close to throwing her previous life to one side and seeking justice at the end of a blade.

Eventually, a changed Mara came out of mourning with a mission. She refused to join a gang, but she wanted to make the streets where she lived a safer place. There was no Bandaran police force or law enforcement presence out in the districts where she lived, so she was going to have to do it herself. She had a tight group of friends around her, and they gathered with those of a like mind and together they drew a line in the sand around the blocks where they lived. Gangs would not be allowed to cross that line. It would be a safe zone, somewhere where people could live in relative peace without having to worry about a knife in the back or being caught in the crossfire.

It wasn’t long before the first gang raided. The Hellcats left the young idealists on the wrong end of a stinging defeat, and for most of the first 6 months, they suffered at the hands of more experienced and more ruthless fighters. But with each attack, Mara learned. She went over the plans the raiders used, looked at how they exploited the defenders, and made sure that when the next one came she was better prepared. She devoured her father’s training manuals on squad tactics and prepared herself as best she could.

When they won their first victory, it was a real turning point. The Jackyls came at them but this time Calleja counter-attacked, taking out enough enemy fighters to start a series of arguments in their ranks until they left empty-handed. Buoyed by their success, the group kept fighting and things started to turn. They had their safe haven and each attack only served to sharpen Mara’s tactical mind. She found that she was able to hold so much information in her head - reports from her scouts, positions of the enemy, where her own fighters were and what their strengths were - that she was able to ‘see’ fights unfold. It gave her group the edge they needed to survive.

Things changed for Mara with the arrival of Roana Taelor a couple of years later. The former Star Fleet officer had come back to her homeworld with a mission to reform it, and she started by bringing the gangs together. Taelor and Calleja met before long and it became clear they were both fighting for the same thing, and the Rebellion (as they had christened themselves) joined up with the coalition that was being built.

Freed from the onerous duty of having to be leader, ideologue and teacher all at the same time, Mara was able to watch and learn from the inside as the movement built its strength. Her keen tactical mind was put to good use, and Mara took in every lesson she could from Taelor and her senior lieutenants as they eventually rose to power. With Bandar joining the Federation, albeit with a long list of provisos and requirements, the long and arduous process of dragging the planet into the modern era could begin.

One of the concessions from the Federation Council, demanded by Taelor, was a pathway for the best and brightest young Bandarans to join Star Fleet. There were no guarantees and it was entirely possible for none of the applicants to make it, but she was determined to give the next generation something to aim for. Those that were successful would have the chance to see the galaxy, learn first-hand about the Federation way of life and then hopefully see them return to Bandar with the skills and experience needed to help rebuild the planet.

It didn’t take Calleja long to decide to sign up. She was still young and she saw the opportunity for what it was, a chance to come back to Bandar and be a part of the future. Taelor had shown her that there were better ways out there to learn from and Mara wanted to see them for herself. She impressed at the interview, posted high aptitude test scores and comfortably passed the physical trials. She was accepted but before she could be sent to the Academy, she needed to spend 2 years at a Federation school to prepare her. Thanks to the broken Bandaran system she’d had only the most basic education, and there was a lot that she needed to be taught.

Mara was sent to Earth to a special institution in Copenhagen. She found herself becoming a surrogate ‘big sister’ to a lot of the other teenagers at the school as her protective instincts came to the fore again, pretty much all of them sharing difficult backgrounds and able to bond over that. Soon she had another tightly-knit friendship group around her and it helped her acclimate to life at a Star Fleet prep school. Her trademark assertiveness was often a problem, and it took her a while to understand that her way of asking questions until she was happy could be seen as a challenge to authority. Still, she was an excellent student, and only too happy to devour every scrap of knowledge that her tutors put in front of her.

When she arrived at the Academy, Calleja enrolled as a Security cadet. There was never a question in her mind about that - she wanted to keep people safe. It was the drive that had kept her going through the dark times on Bandar and the motivation behind her decision to join Star Fleet in the first place.

Mara also swore to herself that she was done with taking lives. She killed opposing fighters on Bandar, and has never shied away from that fact. However good her intentions had been, death was an unavoidable consequence of the endemic violence of the place, and often the only way to stay alive was to put someone down permanently. But standing at the gates of Star Fleet Academy, she saw the opportunity to move past that. Her life didn’t have to revolve around fighting any more. She didn’t want to spar, she shied away from combative holodeck programs, and she flung the knife she’d brought with her into the Pacific Ocean.

As some of her classmates found out the hard way, Calleja could still fight. She trained hard on how to restrain people and how to disarm enemy combatants, and is very skilled in these specific areas, but that’s all she’ll do unless it’s a life or death emergency. No matter how much an instructor tried to convince her to fight like her life depended on it, she just wouldn’t.

That followed through into firearms training. Mara had no affinity whatsoever for phasers, having never even picked one up before starting at the Academy. It took some intensive training for her to get proficient enough to pass certification but she was never comfortable with anything bigger than a type II, and inevitably she skirted perilously close to flunking her phaser qualifications.

It took a while before her real strengths started to show. Calleja turned out to be excellent at de-escalating situations and finding ways to resolve tension before shots were fired. And it wasn’t until halfway through her second year that she revealed herself to be an outstanding leader in combat. She was very skilled at drawing up plans and then communicating them to her team, and she could improvise and adapt to changing circumstances better than pretty much anyone else in her year. She was so good at disguising her true objective and turning the tables that she could confound even instructors who had spent time in combat. Her time spent studying great commanders was put to good use as she took lessons from those of the Klingons and Romulans as well as the Federation.

Her first assignment on graduation saw her posted to the USS Penticton, a frigate that mostly ferried diplomats between assignments. Once she’d been on a couple of missions and earned her first gold pip, Ensign Calleja was given more responsibility to work with the delegations and act as a liaison. When the Penticton crew were mediating a dispute on Tormance, a recently-contacted world subject to a fierce civil war, a terrorist cell attacked the negotiations. They blew up the building and Mara was caught in an impossible position. The Star Fleet team was blamed for allowing the attack to happen. Worse still, the diplomats that she was trying to protect ignored her completely and tried to fight their way clear. Half-deaf from the explosion and cradling several broken ribs, she could only watch as they were gunned down in the street.

The inquiry saw blame apportioned elsewhere, but Calleja blamed herself and she threw herself into extra training and shifts to atone. She took so much onto her shoulders that over a period of several weeks she burned herself out and suffered a serious mental health crisis. After an enforced break, Mara returned to active duty worried about whether her previous issues would stain her short career. It was inevitable she would make the same mistakes again on her new assignment on board the USS Phoenix and she did, taking on far too much far too fast. Luckily for her, her new crew was much better at spotting the warning signs and intervened before she could do herself too much damage.

The Phoenix’s lead counsellor Dr Vander took over the young Ensign’s care. Eventually he broke through and made her understand that the disaster on Tormance wasn’t her fault. Mara was shown the notes from her file on the incident where she was actually commended for trying to do her best in a real-life Kobayashi Maru. But she was told in no uncertain terms that she did have to take responsibility for her own mental health. Burning herself out didn’t show dedication or loyalty, and it wasn’t going to earn her any plaudits either.

Calleja took the points on board, and this time when she came back on duty she built herself up gradually. She took her lead from the other Security officers and managed to establish a fairly healthy balance between work, study and personal time. A second pip followed along with a team leader’s role as she demonstrated an aptitude for leadership.

Soon enough she had another chance to show what she was made of. The Phoenix was part of a task force sent to reign in Cartel activities around a major shipping lane. Mara was called on to lead away teams to secure transport ships, and sometimes in action against the pirates. In one such fight, it turned out that the Star Fleet information was woefully out of date and they had just dropped her team onto an Orion q-ship disguised as a freighter. The boarding party that she was leading was outnumbered 5 to 1 and kept on the enemy ship by transport jammers. Improvised explosives left their breaching site a tangle of twisted metal and for a moment, she was taken right back to Tormance again. This time though Calleja had the experience to fall back on. She split her team up and under her direction they fought back, feinting strikes on vital areas to draw the Orions into ambushes on their own ship, sabotaging power conduits to slow the enemy down as they moved around, and using the Orions’ own communicators to feed them misinformation. 2 hours later, the Star Fleet team blew out the reactor, disabled the transporter jammers and were able to escape. The Phoenix destroyed the ship shortly afterwards.

For her part in the task force’s mission, Mara was made a full Lieutenant and awarded a Commendation Medal. When the USS Artemis returned from the Delta Quadrant, Lt Calleja was reassigned there by Star Fleet Command. It was a huge opportunity for her to serve on such a high-profile ship and one she vowed to take with both hands.

Personality Profile

Academy Major(s): Security.
Academy Minor(s): Urban Warfare, Boarding Action Training.
Hobbies and Pastimes: One of Mara’s first hangouts on Bandar was a bar, and they had an old piano in the corner. It fascinated her and she became determined to coax a tune out of that clapped-out old upright. She kept at it and really flourished when she arrived on Earth, able to listen to all the music she wanted and work with a dedicated tutor at her catch-up school. Music is still her escape to this day, and she has a raw but soulful singing voice to go with her burgeoning skills with a keyboard. Her ear for music also extends to languages. She started studying Klingon at school on Earth and is nearly fluent, and able to make herself understood in Romulan.
Short-Term Goals: Settle on the Artemis and prove that she’s worthy of such a position. Serving on a ship with former Security officers as both Captain and First Officer has presented Calleja with a chance to observe first-hand what it takes to succeed.
Long-Term Goals: When the time is right she wants to return to Bandar IV, taking her skills and experience back to her homeworld and devoting herself to the efforts to reform the planet.
Personality: Mara often presents as feisty and strong-willed. She doesn’t shy away from difficult decisions and has no problem at all with being the one to take responsibility for a situation. Underneath this is a genuinely caring person, someone who wants the best for those around her and will put herself in the firing line for them without a second thought. She’s still a bit naive sometimes, and as someone who wears her heart on her sleeve she often struggles with ‘playing the game’ and ship politics.
Sense of Humor: Calleja possesses a waspish sense of humour and a taste for sharp one-liners.
Phobias: Deep down, Mara knows that she will eventually have to kill again. The nature of her role makes that a near-certainty. But what terrifies her is what might happen when that closed-off part of her is released. It took every ounce of willpower she had to steer herself away from bloody violence before. Will she have the strength to do that for a second time?
Likes: Nothing makes her happier than when a team she’s leading nails a drill or aces a mission, or when an officer that she’s trained earns their own promotions. She finds it incredibly rewarding to be a part of someone else’s journey.
Dislikes: Sparring, firing range drills and combative holodeck exercises. Calleja won’t step into a ring under any circumstances and she has no interest in spending her free time fighting.
Pet Peeves or Gripes: Junior officers that use friendships with seniors to gain benefits and generally slack off. Mara has difficulty spotting when she’s being used in this way and it really upsets her when she realises or has it pointed out.
Bad Habits or Vices: Calleja is a nightmare to face in any kind of exercise. She never gives anything less than 100% and that can lead to heated exchanges and hurt feelings. The whole concept of going easy or taking her foot off the gas is anathema to her.
Achievements: Mara’s strongest achievement was to emerge from the industrial hellhole of Bandar City, having lost her sister to gang violence, without being poisoned by the place. It would have been so easy to lose herself in the violence but instead she held herself above it.
Disappointments: Calleja is at her best when surrounded by a close-knit group of friends. It bothers her that she’s not been able to forge anything like this out on board ships.
Illnesses: Mara is prone to pushing herself too hard, and has burned out in the past because she’s both bad at taking meaningful rest and too stubborn to admit when she’s being stretched too far. To try and manage this, her file now carries notations to her ship’s Medical department to keep her in regular touch with a counsellor to monitor her stress levels.
Strengths: Calleja possesses a formidable tactical brain and a rare ability to innovate and respond in the face of adversity. She learns quickly and is a very good trainer who can convey her ideas well.
Weaknesses: There’s assertive and then there’s Mara Calleja. Her intentions are good but she has an unwelcome knack for rubbing senior officers up the wrong way, as she often appears to be challenging their orders. Perhaps surprisingly for a Security officer, Mara is a very reluctant fighter and an average shot at best. She is able to pass phaser certifications but struggles with rifles and heavier weaponry. It is very obvious watching her handle a firearm that she didn’t pick one up until she arrived at the Academy.
Fears: Very little scares Calleja, but for someone who can be socially awkward she has a real need to be amongst people. Loneliness and isolation is something she fears a great deal.
Prejudices: Mara detests any glorification of violence. She is dismissive of martial arts, calling them play-fighting, and believes that anyone who spends their free time playing shoot-em-ups or combat sims should have to spend time on Bandar City to really appreciate how violence can warp personalities and ruin lives.
Off Duty Clothing Tastes: Simple and practical. Usually wears dark colours and very little that stands out, a hangover from her days trying not to be associated with gangs.
Distinguishing Features: Her sheer height gives her a real presence that’s hard to ignore.
Friends: She was part of really close-knit groups both growing up on Bandar, and again at her prep school on Earth. They all keep in touch with each other by subspace message, and Mara is always happy to see them again.

Personal Paradigm Shifts

Most Painful Experience: The loss of her sister in such awful circumstances was the most that Mara has ever been hurt. She had taken such pains to avoid the bloody morass of Bandaran gang culture but in her grief, she was so nearly dragged into that harsh life. For the first time she felt that volcanic anger rise up within her. It took incredible willpower and the support of her friends to be able to harness that and instead turn it into something good. Their ‘safe zone’ saved a lot of lives.
Best Time: It will take something special to top the moment when Mara sent the extraction signal to the USS Phoenix from the Orion q-ship. Her team had been given no chance of returning once it became clear that they had been dropped into a hornet’s nest. Thanks to her tactical acumen and leadership they came home. Afterwards, the newly-minted Lieutenant felt like she’d finally arrived and shown what she could really do.
Most Crucial Experience: When Mara arrived on Earth to start at a Star Fleet prep school, the surroundings were completely alien to her. She lived in a fully furnished room, she could work out on proper equipment, and all the food she could ever eat was at her beck and call. But most importantly of all, she was surrounded by a rich culture. Music had fascinated her on Bandar but it was on Earth that she was really able to embrace it and feel joy in creativity.
Role Model: Roana Taelor. She showed an entire planet that there was another way, and led them into the Federation. Her legacy was a better life for millions of people. When it’s Mara’s time to finally retire, she hopes to have had such an impact on even a tiny fraction of those numbers.

Career History

Position	Assignment	Date(s)	Event
Security Officer	USS Artemis, EX-11000	242201.27	Lieutenant
Security Officer	USS Artemis, EX-11000	242305.01	Role Player of the Month
Security Officer	USS Artemis, EX-11000	242307.01	Role Player of the Month
Security Officer	USS Artemis, EX-11000	242308.01	Star Fleet Commendation Medal
Security Officer	USS Artemis, EX-11000	242308.01	Outstanding Unit Citation
Security Officer	USS Artemis, EX-11000	242312.01	Role Player of the Month

Medals Tally:

Service Medals Awarded
Image	Description	Qty.
	Star Fleet Commendation Medal	1
	Outstanding Unit Citation	1
Achievement Medals Awarded
Image	Description	Qty.
	Role Player of the Month	3

Supplemental Information

Previous Character: Sydesh, Beka

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