Roshanara Rahman/Mercury

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Aboard the USS Mercury


Roshanara Rahman, chief engineer of the USS Mercury

On SD 238909.16, Roshanara was promoted to lieutenant commander and assigned to the Mercury as chief engineer. She became acquainted with one of the ship's medical officers, Niccolò del Vedova, through her medical check-in, and introduced herself informally to her engineering staff the night before her first official day as chief of the department.

Soon after the Mercury left StarBase 118, though, Roshanara's engineering skills were called into service after the ship began suffering minor computer glitches that eventually threatened to interfere with the ship's vital mission transporting Councilor Prianna of the Cardassian Union's Detapa Council. While looking into the manner, Roshanara, science officer Ian West, and engineer Rick Rawden became trapped in the ship's primary computer core control room. There, they discovered that the glitches were being caused by some kind of artificial intelligence that referred to itself as Efili and took the form of a Mercury crewman as its holographic avatar.

Hell of a First Day

The crew did not have too much time to investigate further as the ship was rocked by several explosives the following morning after the ship's captain Aron Kells and several senior officers had been seemingly kidnapped by the Klingons. Among the most heavily damaged areas was main engineering, where 16 engineers perished, including Graham MacNeil, the assistant chief engineer. Had Roshanara not remained on the upper level when the explosives went off, it is likely she too would have died.

Working with Alexander Richards and (surprisingly) Dr. Del Vedova, Roshanara and her engineering crew were able to restore some of the ship's systems, and the Mercury limped back to StarBase 118 once Captain Kells and the others were retrieved.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

The Mercury arrives to find things nice and quiet aboard DSX... too quiet.

After a brief respite aboard StarBase 118, the Mercury was sent back to the Menthar Corridor to provide support for the Starfleet Corps of Engineers team already working on repurposing Deep Space 10. However, once the Mercury arrived at DSX, they found the station seemingly deserted yet with no signs of an attack or evacuation.

The away teams had already beamed over before it was soon discovered some sort of pathogen was loose aboard the station. Furthermore, it seemed at least some of the SCE team had succumbed to the infection and now roamed through the corridors as violent revenants. Compounding the situation, the Mercury's transporter systems were disabled by an overload in the biofilters from the pathogen, and an impending coronal mass ejection threatened to annihilate those aboard DSX, which remained unshielded from the lethal cosmic rays.

Roshanara worked with the rest of the team to hold out as long as possible until the Mercury was able to send a second team to retrieve them and keep them in isolation aboard several shuttlecraft. While looking over the station's systems, she deduced that the SCE team may have sought refuge deep within the station, and eventually, the crew was able to rescue the few survivors and escape DSX before the coronal mass ejection hit the station, killing the remaining revenants.

Aches and Pains

Roshanara herself succumbed to injury while aboard DSX, but fortunately, she was quickly treated once back aboard the Mercury. Yet it was the headaches she had begun experiencing in late 2389 that were continuing to bother her. She kept with the medication Dr. Del Vedova had originally prescribed, but she was finding that she was needing to take more of it to be effective.

Roshanara in her quarters aboard the USS Mercury

Meanwhile, her colleague Eyas Wulfantine had learned that his mother was to be put to death and began preparations for a rescue mission with the aid of some of his shipmates. Roshanara was initially hesitant about getting involved in the internal matters of another world, and she wasn't particularly close to Wulfantine outside of a professional context for that matter. However, her friend Lidia Ivanova shared a deep bond with the Pythron, and after an intense conversation with the spirited security officer, Roshanara was soon aboard a civilian transport, disguised as a lowly servent for a visiting dignitary.

Her true role was to help deliver a rescue team aboard a cloaked Romulan shuttle and stand by until the team's mission was complete. An encroaching patrol from the Pythron State Guard complicated matters, and Roshanara chose to bring aboard both a Pythron civilian and the leader of the Pythron guard after they had been incapacitated by Major Jacen Fanel. The guard, known as Asar, however would not be taken easily, and knocked out Roshanara once he awoke aboard the shuttle before being stunned a second time.

Once the rescue team had succeeded in their mission to not only rescue Wulfantine's mother but also expose the greater political conspiracy concocted by Wulfantine's enemies, the team was quickly beamed back to the shuttle. The two Pythrons were returned to the surface as a new chapter began in Pythron history.

  • Noteworthy SIMs
    • "Festival of Sweets" - SD 239002.09 (While recovering in sickbay, Roshanara is reminded of a near-delicious moment from her childhood.)
    • "Friends in Need" - SD 239002.20 (Lidia chides her friend for being lame.)
    • "Reflection" - SD 239004.06 (Alone with a captured Pythron, Roshanara feels... different.)

Decisive Intervention

The headaches continued, and Roshanara began to suffer from distracting thoughts and brief but unsettling lapses in concentration. Finding no relief through the medication, she turned to Del again for help. He proposed a daring surgical procedure with Dr. Ven Demar, an innovative neurosurgeon familiar with cybernetic augmentation, to stabilize her neuroplasticity. Desperate for a solution, Roshanara agreed to the surgery in the hopes that it can prevent her condition from costing her career. Following the procedure, she remained aboard DSX while the Mercury headed off on a months long voyage seeking an ancient library. Del remained behind with Roshanara, ostensibly to check on her recovery. The two soon discovered not all of the cybernetic spiders aboard DSX were eliminated by the coronal mass ejection, and new questions arose on whether or not the creatures possessed sentience.

  • Noteworthy SIM
    • "Secret Admirer" - SD 239005.08-239006.06 (Roshanara and Del have a heart-to-heart before someone else drops in.)

Premonition

Captain Aron Kells, transformed into his 60-year-old self

Meanwhile, Captain Aron Kells underwent a second transformation into his 60-year-old self, through which he remembers the ultimate fate of Roshanara's deteriorating medical condition, unfortunately accelerated by the surgery performed by Ven and Del. By 2392, he had been forced to relieve her of duty and ultimately agreed with a recommendation by Del at that time for Roshanara to be medically discharged from the service. By 2404, he tracked her down to a distant Dopterian ocean colony, where she had been hiding from the intrusions of greater society that had wrecked havoc on her.

Although he struggled with whether to intervene explicitly once he found himself back in 2390, Kells finally decided to do so after a more subtle attempt by him nearly cost Roshanara her life within a supervolcano on 83 Leonis II. His intervention, though, required that Del first betray Roshanara's trust and confidentiality. Now that Roshanara knew the truth nearly a decade earlier than she had in an alternate future, not even Kells knew if she—and Del—could change their fates.

  • Noteworthy SIMs
    • "Allah Yerhama" - 2392 (After a near disaster stemming from her most recent and severe lapse while on duty, Captain Kells relieves Roshanara of duty and affirms the recommendaion by Del for her medical discharge from Starfleet.)
    • "The Life After" & "Reunion" - 2404 (Kells chases after Roshanara into the 25th century.)
    • "Little Girl, Big Dreams" - 2371 and SD 239008.11-18 (A 14-year-old girl has aspirations beyond Earth.)
    • "Definitive Diagnosis" - SD 239008.22 (Roshanara finds the key to her ongoing condition from an unlikely source.)

New Paths Forged

Harrison Ross, first officer and later acting captain of the Mercury

Confining herself to her quarters and engineering over shore leave, the reclusive engineer contemplated the truth of her personal crisis. A possible answer then presented itself through the return of Isaac Bale to the Mercury.

In the wake of the galaxy-wide crisis dubbed "Through Open Gates", the ship was tasked with investigating the alleged existence and sale of an Iconian gateway by Tol, owner of the Menthar Anchorage. Following Captain Kells's sudden detainment to answer questions by the JAG regarding the 83 Leonis II crisis, command of the Mercury was transferred to Commander Harrison Ross, and Roshanara was named as his first officer in addition to her engineering duties.

To help her coordinate her efforts between the bridge and engineering, Roshanara recommended Jenna D'Soni—revived from stasis earlier in the year and formerly of the Constitution-class USS Saratoga—for promotion to assistant chief engineer, a position that had remained vacant in the aftermath of Graham MacNeil's death nearly one year earlier.

  • Noteworthy SIM
    • "Expect the Unexpected" - SD 239009.05 (Roshanara finally names Graham MacNeil's replacement. This sim is from Jenna D'Soni's perspective and written by her writer.)

Needle in a Haystack

IVANOVA: Please tell me you're not going like that.

RAHMAN: What's wrong with this?

IVANOVA: It's supposed to be a summer fair, not Friday service.

RAHMAN: I don't just wear this on Fridays...

IVANOVA: I know...

Lidia Ivanova tries to get Roshanara into the spirit of the fair.
"Stubbornness" - SD 239010.29

Roshanara was assigned to oversee a team that would try to independently locate the location of the gateway while other Mercury crew attempted to find the location via the auction on the Menthar Anchorage. Using a controversial subspace call monitoring system developed in major part through Isaac Bale's knowledge of intelligence gathering, newly-arrived but veteran engineering R&D officer Kevin Breeman's assistance, and communications officer Lucy Ramadevi's expertise, Roshanara, along with science officer Alora DeVeau, Doctor Kotir Arith, and Straasik, a Vulcan civilian computer scientist, pinpointed the last known location of the FTS Treasure Sprite, a trading vessel that had gone missing recently and which DeVeau had discovered as likely involved with the Gateway crisis. Roshanara recommended to acting captain Ross that the Mercury proceed at once to find the Treasure Sprite before the other bidders caught on to the chase.

Aboard the USS Mercury with USS Garuda in the background in late 2390

On route, Ross held a casual promotions ceremony in the setting of a magical fair from a children's storybook on the holodeck. Although encouraged by her friend Lidia Ivanova to relax and partake in the atmosphere of the program, Roshanara unexpectedly experienced a panic attack from the overwhelming noise and crowd of the gathering. She retreated to a secluded area before Breeman sought her out to accompany her for the rest of the evening.

However, the episode had also caught Dr. Del Vedova's attention, who called her out on the seriousness of what happened. With their friendship strained since the involvement of Kells in the whole affair, it was then the just recently exonerated captain himself who next called for Roshanara to report immediately to his ready room, along with Ross, Saveron, and Bale. The captain sounded none-too-pleased.

  • Noteworthy SIMs
    • "Not This Time" & "Ships Passing in the Night" - SD 239010.27 (Isaac and Roshanara discuss dangerous hypotheticals, and they each take a different path than what their past selves might have done.)
    • "Old Friends" - SD 239011.04 (Del demands to know what happened with Roshanara earlier on the holodeck.)
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