William Haynes

William was born May, 25th 2357 on board the USS Galaxy to Joseph and Christine Haynes. At the time his father was a specialist in warp field theory and design, assigned to the the Galaxy-class design program. At this point his career his father was constantly moving around on various Galaxy-class starships to review the warp drive systems and take data and suggestions from personnel in the field to better adjust the ships system. Though this constant moving among the starships during his early years meant that he never really considered anywhere home, it did give him a chance to see a number of federation worlds and sectors as well as their various species, he would later state his fathers work and the memories of growing up around starships would be part of the influence on his decision to also join Starfleet. It did also have an impact on developing friends early on, he did make a few that he would manage to keep in contact with through subspace messaging, one including a young Betazoid girl named Lianna.

Williams father’s career would advance and when William was about eight his father would accept a promotion and a fixed assignment at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards orbiting Mars, the family settling in a home in Northern California. Life in a fixed location was difficult at first, as was being grounded after years in space. To help with this restlessness he was given a telescope which started an interest in astronomy, learning the starts visible from earth and the constellations. later he would start studying the stars of other planets to see what was visible and what sort of constellations formed out of their own mythologies. A few years later he was introduced into model starships, something that would build his interest in starship engineering, with the aid of his father he was soon building small kit projects and building flyable models. At 12 the Betazoid girl Lianna he had met years ago settled on earth, her father was now an instructor with Starfleet Academy, allowing them to continue their friendship without the regular subspace messaging. In his teenage years he was introduced into baseball and his friendship with Lianna turned into a romance. With his schooling moving ever closer to graduation he began to focus on his desired future, becoming an officer in Starfleet. he began taking a number of preparatory and exploratory classes into the Academy, and he would be accepted rolling into the Academy immediately after graduation.

2379 would be a busy year. Early in the year he found out Lianna was pregnant and expecting a child towards the end of the year. He was in his final year at the Academy, and the very next day after the Academy’s graduation, Wiliam would marry Lianna. Though Lianna’s parents were disappointed they let him off the hook for hosting a traditional Betazoid wedding, and he promised to name their son after her father Keanne. Now a fresh faced officer and freshly married he would report to his assignment, an engineer on board the USS Rabat, which after a short diversion to the Romulan neutral zone during the Shinzon coup, would settle into routine operations in Cardassian space. His son would be born November 23rd, 2379.

Keanne was born with some difficulties however, he ate and slept very little seemingly very fussy and upset despite physical scans showing nothing wrong. Keanne was half Betazoid however and it would turn out he had a rare development where unlike other Betazoids his empathic abilities were already formed and without the mental “shielding” that Betazoids would normally develop when growing their own abilities in childhood. without this block he was unable to protect himself from the incoming feelings of emotions, giving the baby a sort of sensory overload. Then a few months later in mid 2380 Lianna would die in a shuttle accident over Earth’s moon Luna.

William got an emergency leave of absence and left the Rabat and return home to grieve and bury his wife. While their he decided that he did not want to press his son onto his parents or even Lianna’s parents to be raised, however he was also concerned he could not bring this child onto a starship in this condition. He required constant care and medical checkups, he would be strain on himself and any ships medical facilities, if the ship had the facilities for civilian families in the first place. After getting an extension on his leave he would finally realize that without leaving his son to someone else he would not be able to handle his duties as an officer and a father. So in 2380, barely a year after graduation he would resign his commission and return to civilian life to see after his son.

Returned to civilian life William would do his best to help raise his son, once again relying on his hobbies to keep him occupied, he would follow the events going on in Starfleet and try to keep up with the latest engineering journals, though sometimes they were simply painful reminders of a life he gave up and sometimes he would just stop. Thankfully as his son grew up the Federations best medical doctors began to develop ways to help Keanne control his empathtic abilities. Neural implants that stimulated or inhibited the necessary parts of his brain when needed, supplemented with medication reduced the sensory overload he experienced from daily constant to a few days out of a month, or a week at worst. it was not a perfect solution but it finally allowed Keanne to start coping, and quickly he began to improve. William would begin building models and showing Keanne what he knew of the stars, and though the boy did not seem as interested in baseball and only mildly curious at the engineering journals his father would sometimes read things finally began to normalize.

This feeling of normalization would make William start to feel restless again however. less time was being devoted to full time care for his son, he could begin tending school and enjoy life more, giving him more free time, free time he was not sure how to fill. he began wondering if maybe civilian engineering jobs around earth might help fill his itch, even if it didn’t mean getting back out to space. however one night his son brought out directly, asking him if he wanted to return to Starfleet and space.

It was now late 2387, he had been out of Starfleet on what would be nearing eight years and though there were doubts his own son was encouraging him so he began to prepare. He began a self training regimen to get himself in shape again, and began going into the engineering journals in even greater detail, sometimes going as far as trying to contact the authors.

In 2388 he would finally approach Starfleet with a request for his commission to be reinstated and launching a year long effort that saw numerous tests, hearts, and interviews (and some might whisper some strings pulled in the right places) but eventually Starfleet would see fit to reinstate his commission and return him to starfleet.