Melody Leigh Haverstaad

Melody Haverstaad is a Senior Chief Petty Officer and Chief of the Tactical Interactive Holographic System aboard the USS Boudicca

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Melody Haverstaad in Dress Uniform

Authors Note

Melody is one of those fun lovin' gals I created along my standard lines… meaning she's a bitch who is not to be messed with :-P

I originally created her as a short-term NPC, just someone to explain the Tactical Interactive Holographic System to the security crew of the newly launched Boudicca. Of course, like most of my short-term NPC's, I fell in love with her attitude and kept playing her.

She is an on-again, off-again love interest to Trevan West, and she's my basic fall-back character on Boudicca when things are quiet and I want to post Lower Decks. She takes a hell of a beating, but hey, she's still cute! She is also one of the few characters I have where there are no forward plans, I have no grand design for her, she just floats where fate happens to take her…

And for a rarity, I can’t think of many authors notes I’ll have to type during her history. Huzzah!

History

Pre-Starfleet Life

Melody was not quite your standard girl from Earth, she ended up seeing more of the universe then most as both her parents were Civilian Consultants to Starfleet for Astrophysics, and often attended symposiums on Federation Worlds to help train Starfleet Science Officers in their field. They almost always took their daughter along, and that traveling more-or-less convinced a young Melody Haverstaad that she was destined to join the fleet. She found her parents occupation… stuffy.

She didn’t exactly throw herself into preparation for it, her desire to see the Stars didn’t become over-whelming or an obsession until she was a late teenager. She spent her childhood being home-schooled from her parents, and engaging in tom-boyish persuits that would get her in quite a bit a trouble a number of times.

Melody was always a physical child; she spent lots of her free time running, climbing, biking, swimming, or any number of other physical activities. She did not lack for brains in any manner, but she usually chose not to apply herself to what her parents believed was her full potential. She would later admit to them, while on a brief leave after she had graduated Starfleet Crewman School, that she had taken average-to-high marks only to annoy them. As she said it, “I didn’t want to be stuffed into a lab all day, thanks much.”

She finished school at age 17, 3 months before her 18th birthday. Her parents begged her to attend University when the next Semester started up again, but she deferred and instead signed up with Starfleet the day after her 18th birthday.

Crewman School

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Melody Haverstaad after Graduation

Melody entered Crewman School with an energy she hadn’t put into anything for years. The School itself is only six months long, with another 2 – 16 months depending on necessary job-skill training. A far cry from the 4+ years she would have had to spend in the Academy to become an officer.

Her time there was spent studying and raising hell, not necessarily in that order, and she was brought up on disciplinary action no less then three times, though for nothing more serious then breaking curfew, usually to jog beyond the campus limits in San Francisco.

She joined just before a scuffle with the Cardassians, which colored her view after the six months of boot camp, for she chose Starship/Starbase Security as her vocation. Security Training was another six months of high-intensity skill-training, most of it physical, and she excelled in it all. She was rated as a Master-Phaser by the end of her year at school, and she was further rated for Starship & Ground Combat with standard Tactical Forces. Her wanderlust set upon her after this year’s worth of training and she bypassed the extra Ambassadorial Guard training her marks qualified her for, though she would later qualify during her stint on the USS Destiny at her Senior-Chief’s urging. Upon finishing her schooling, she was immediately transferred as a full Crewman to the USS Marlboro, which had put into Utopia Planitia for a standard 10 year refit and was nearly ready for redeployment.

Serving Onboard USS Marlboro

Melody, typically full of herself, joined the crew of the USS Marlboro thinking the universe was hers to be had. She didn’t expect, however, that her years worth of education and how she flew by her classes would leave her nearly unprepared for the way things were onboard ship. She once made mention of how she excelled in everything at Crew School to her Senior Squad NCO, and she never forgot his reaction. He simply smiled and said “That’s fine lass, now here’s the fleet.”

If Melody was still a hellion or loose cannon after graduation and her first few months on the Marlboro, it was the Alvarian VIII incident which cured her of it. It was her first introduction into real combat, this time against the forces of the Dominion. The Dominion and the Federation were constantly bickering about territories just their side of the Wormhole; often-times that bickering became the equivalent of a turf-war, which thankfully never blew up into a full-blown war. The Marlboro had been assigned to Alvarian VIII and her tactical forces deployed ground-side to protect a colony there when several Jem Hadar squads came against the colony for no reason given. The Tactical forces were not surprised, but casualties tended to be heavy. Only quick thinking and quick orders saved the colony from being flanked and destroyed, and it was then that Melody learned her no-nonsense approach to her job. She continued to be fun-hearted off duty, but on duty, she became the paragon of seriousness.

The Marlboro would come against the Jem Hadar and other Dominion forces four other times during her seven years on board, three times more in ground combat. She was decorated for valor twice and with a wounded lion twice for being injured in combat. It was usually after these bouts of combat that she would be promoted, and she rose as high as Petty Officer First Class while with the Marlboro.

During her last year on the Marlboro, the Cardassian/Federation war was sparked and the entire fleet moved into combat. Melody, as a senior Petty Officer, was often-times found in charge of ground Tactical units during close combat, or to take enemy bases. Several of the battles were bloody, but none so much as the Battle of Chin'Toka where the Cardassians had built a fortified forward base. Twenty thousand troops, including a Petty Officer Haverstaad, hit the dirt in that battle while hundreds of starships battled it out for Space Supremacy. After thirty hours, Starfleet commanded both the skies and the base, but at the expensive of nearly half the troops and nearly 90 starships, including her own USS Marlboro.

Authors Note: No, this is not the Dominion War from DS9, that war never happened in Freedom’s timeline. But Chin’toka is a major system in the area, so why not?

Melody found herself in command of a nominal platoon, a Tactical command usually reserved for a Starfleet Officer above the rank of Lieutenant. She hadn’t had a choice in the matter, however, almost every officer above the rank of Ensign had been killed, and the three that were left from her division of forces had become gibbering wrecks during the fire-fight. She had forcibly taken command when they had proved unable.

She was transferred to the USS Destiny, one of the ships which had escaped major damage in the battle above, and beamed there directly with what was left of the Marlboro’s Tactical forces.

Serving Onboard USS Destiny

(Coming: 2 year tour, promotion to Chief Petty Officer, Combat against the Dominion twice, against the Cardassians several times in war, additional training prior to Chief Petty Officer)

Serving Onboard USS Black Jack

(Coming: 2.5 year tour, promotion to Senior Chief Petty Officer, combat against the Borg)

Serving at Earth

(Coming: 2404 assigned to Tactical Imaging School, 6 month transfer back to Earth. Hopes of attaining Master Chief PO, or the much vaunted MCPO Of the Fleet, or MOPO of Starfleet… since with her new training she would have the pre-requisite training in at least 2 departments for either of the high-positions)

Serving Onboard USS Boudicca

After her transfer, Melody immediately began overseeing the refit of the USS Boudicca in terms of the Tactical Holographic Systems. She expected to have a full year, but her time was cut short with Admiral Robert LoDona’s pullout of Starfleet. The refit was rushed, though thankfully her systems were nearly completed by the time the Captain Caladryll Sevant was assigned as her new Commanding Officer and the Boudicca was given a launch date.

(Coming: psi-ders, broken bones from a ruptured conduit, multiple cuts and a sliced artery. Broken ribs and ruptured ear-drums from being blown down 2 flights of stairs & being to close to concussion grenades during the time-mission, plus her dress)

Biographical Information & Other

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Melody during darker times

(Coming)

Melody Haverstaad is played by J Trout