Annikafiore Szerda

Early Life

Annikafiore Szerda applied to Starfleet out of a sense of duty. Her parents were competitive dancers, and yet Annikafiore was born with all the grace of a hippopotamus. Although she learned to skydance, she never learned to love it for herself. Accepting that dance was a chore to Annikafiore, her parents encouraged her to follow other passions: music or writing, perhaps. Annikafiore excelled in school, exceeded the expectations set out for her, but she none of the subjects translated into something she wanted to do every day for the rest of her life. She enjoyed artistic expression, but it was a hobby for her. It was an outlet to distract her from her studies. It was never her passion.

Some say Annikafiore joined Starfleet because she wanted to defend her parents’ right and freedom to spend their days devoted to the arts. It was important to her. Growing up in the shadow of Dominion and Borg attacks, Annikafiore attributed that freedom to Starfleet. Others are less kind. There are others who say Annikafiore’s Starfleet career came about because of her desire to bed soulful explorers and gorgeous soldiers, and her inability to choose between the two.

Starfleet Academy

Once accepted by Starfleet Academy, Annikafiore struggled with her academics. She was distracted by the process of acclimatizing herself to Federation standard environments. She physically trained her body just by being there, and later through extensive cardiovascular training, weight training, and studying of martial arts. In her time on Earth, and during her first starship assignment, Annikafiore was largely confined to an anti-grav chair that provided her mobility. As she continued her strength-training, she attained greater personal mobility through Lieber exoskeleton technology she wore over her uniform.

Annikafiore’s studies in Astronautics and Computer Science benefited from an orderly and technical mind. She benefitted from an eidetic memory, able an entire paragraph from a book she read two years ago. Following her passions, Anniakfiore took to starship operations, along with the manipulation and designing of computer access and retrieval systems. From her longings for home, Annikafiore’s most common hobby became flight. With the life-support and artificial gravity settings in just a certain way, flying a shuttle could almost feel like sky dancing to Annikafiore.

Early Career

For over a year after her graduation from Starfleet Academy, Ensign Szerda has served as a hanger operations officer for Starbase 72, learning various functions in both flight control and operations. In early 2400, Szerda has been selected as the flight controller and operations manager for the Raven-class USS Nestus on science missions of archaeology and anthropology.  She served in a similar capacity under Captain Taes’ subsequent commands, the USS Dvorak, USS Sarek and USS Olympic.

Pivot

As an officer in the fourth fleet, Szerda experienced frequent transfers between vessels, requested by captains with the most challenging missions.  In those subsequent postings, though, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Flavia gradually fell out of love with flying.  She narrowly avoided death during the Dominion Invasion of the Deneb Sector and the Borg’s tele-assimilation of Starfleet’s junior officers on Frontier Day 2401.  Aboard the Grus, she became lost in the depths of the Vaadwaur’s Underspace, and aboard the Minerva, she piloted into all-out-war in the skies over the Vaadwaur homeworld.

Seeking to fall in love with Starfleet again, Lieutenant Szerda refreshed her studies in astronautics, computer science and stellar cartography, and accepted reassignment to USS Constellation as a science officer.