Adriana Cruz

Early Life (2374 – 2392)

Earth may be a post scarcity world, but it’s still the case that not everyone grows up with their family owning a vineyard. Some grow up the daughter of a single mother living in a one bedroom apartment in the sprawl and noise of Mexico City. An idealized picturesque childhood was never in the cards for Adriana Cruz whose support network was not family so much as the kids in the neighborhood around her. By the age of ten she was stealing, part of a youth gang run by local criminals who would take small things from people in exchange for food, shelter, and most of all belonging.

At sixteen Adriana stole a Runabout with some others, and was arrested. The judge decided to try to her as an adult, and if it were not for the intervention of the arresting officer she would have been jailed for a long time. Instead a deal was brokered to put her into a youth home, with the goal of stabilizing her education and then sending her to Starfleet which the arresting officer had served in and believed could use someone like Cruz.

Though Cruz initially bristled under the structure of a home, running away several times, she turned out to be good at school when she attended regularly which she was now doing. She was an out-of-the-box thinker and when she did apply for Starfleet her left field answers paid off, getting her admission.

Starfleet Academy (2392 – 2396)

A good student Adriana was near the top of her class in most of her classes by her second year. She was also fiercely competitive and got in trouble for fighting a fellow student (a Vulcan) in her first year. She fairly quickly identified her area of specialty as being Strategic Operations, and loved the fact that unlike engineering or medicine there was no single right or wrong answer. Cruz delighted in coming up with out of the box solutions which either spectacularly backfired or worked surprisingly well.

She dated an Andorian cadet for awhile in second through to fourth year, but nothing serious ever emerged. Brief relationships with both men and women followed but nothing serious ever developed as Cruz’s focus remained mostly on getting her first assignment.

In her fourth year she was injured on her training assignment getting a scar on her back, and losing the use of her right arm for several weeks. Rather than make her skittish at dangerous tasks and assignments she felt invincible and for awhile afterwards would take risks until a Professor pulled her aside and told her to calm down.

Starfleet First Assignments (2396 – 2401)

With no open roles for Strategic Operations positions available when she left the Academy Cruz was made an Operations Engsign on the USS Victory. While she was competent in the role it was clear that this was not her passion, and she began to lobby for a transfer almost immediately. A position on Starbase 76 opened up and she made the move, joining the Strategic Operations division there for just over a year.

A post on the USS Thames opened up and she transferred there, a ship that worked on the border out of Starbase 76. On the Thames she rose to becoming the Chief Strategic Operations Officer and was offered a First Officer slot. Thinking she was up for a position on a Galaxy Class ship she took it, and instead was sent to the USS Anaheim, whose first officer had just gone on sabbatical. She was a Commander, and the First Officer of the USS Anaheim though the ship had been badly damaged and required repair so she followed Captain Nathan Hawthorne to his next assignment aboard the USS Seattle.

The USS Seattle successful completed a number of missions, including diverting the Borg from Federation space. However during a first contact stop at Maya 3, known to the inhabitants as Maya, Captain Hawthorne and all male crew aboard the USS Seattle were poisoned leading to Cruz having to take command of the ship. Hawthorne required a lung transplant back at Starbase 72, and was off active duty, leaving Cruz to continue to command the Seattle.