Jessika Brent

In 1985, Annika Eymer, was an augment who had been assigned to Europe along with several others. She had been romantically involved with another augment named Gabriel Brent who was ambitious and cunning. That year they had a child together and named her Jessika and while things were stable during this time, they were already planning for more. By 1991 Annika and Gabriel had joined several other augments in plants to take over much of eastern Europe. Under the leadership of an augment named Ivan Konietsko, they seized control of parts of Germany, as well as most of Poland, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

Annika and Gabriel had thought they would be rulers of huge swaths of land but instead found themselves serving Konietsko as little more than lieutenants. The augment warlord maintained a separation of power between himself and others in the hopes of maintaining control of his new kingdom. Primarily, Annika served as an assassin, though she occasionally acted as a spy of sorts, tracking potential human resistance. Gabriel oversaw human slaves, and considered himself little better than a factory foreman.

Things got more serious between Annika and Gabriel as they both grew unhappy with their positions in the kingdom. Gabriel started coming to Annika telling her that he wanted to kill the warlord and share control of his territory with Annika. It’s impossible to know for sure if Annika ever believed Gabriel, but spying on him revealed that he simply needed her skills as an assassin. Once the warlord was dead, he planned to kill Annika to consolidate power. It seems that he was unsure what to do about Jessika as he did care very deeply about his young daughter, but feared that one day she would betray him.

Annika was careful and planned her next moves carefully. Jessika remembers that her mother insisted that she be competent and self sufficient, training her as much to survive her father as to be her ultimate successor. Most days were spent doing weapons training, studying history, art, literature, psychology, and game theory. Her mind as well as body were pushed so that both would be exceptional. Annika would often bring young Jessika along to see the kind of work she did when possible, conditioning the young augment.

It was when Jessika was about 10 years of age when her father initiated his plan. All went well with her parents killing the warlord and taking over his territory. However, human unrest was at an all time high. Knowing that she had little time before Garbriel would turn on her, Annika planned to kill him as he slept next to her one night. What she hadn’t counted on was Jessika coming into the room in the middle of the murder.

This would prove to be a defining moment in Jessika’s life. She would later say that this was when she first started to think of her mother not as the embodiment of perfection but instead as greedy, murderous, and cold. Annika was seriously injured during the murder of her lover Gabriel, suffering a brain injury that would come to define her. The once proud, calculated augment became a murderous, brutish, madwoman. Lashing out at her subjects as well as those closest to her.

Annika’s reign would only last two months before the humans rose up against her, fearing her ultimate goal was their extermination. Jessika’s disgust for her mother only grew as she watched the atrocities committed to try and beat the humans back. At the end of her mother’s reign, the humans had managed to surround the royal palace and were attempting to storm the grounds to get to Annika. Jessika, while young, hoped to survive the encounter and recognized that her mother had to be stopped. Sneaking into the security control room of the palace, Jessika intentionally sabotaged the front gates allowing the humans to rush the compound.

She was caught, however, by her mother’s security and Jessika was brought directly to Annika. Furious with her daughter, Annika decided to place her daughter in a stasis pod and ordered her men to bury the girl alive before the humans could reach the inner portions of the palace. Jessika fought her mother as best she could but was still far too young to be a threat. She was bound and placed in the pod before being sealed in the floor of the palace.

Two things saved young Jessika’s life that night. First was her mother’s desire to make her suffer rather than killing her outright. The second was a guard who felt sympathy for her, and made sure that she was actually placed in stasis before being buried. Jessika went to sleep and from that point history only notes that the siege of the palace lasted six days before the humans were able to kill Annika and arrest any still loyal to her.

The royal palace would be destroyed during the third world war, but the foundation and ground floor had been left mostly untouched. Later, the area was treated as a historical site and was reconstructed to some degree to allow future generations to better understand the dangers of that kind of genetic engineering.

In 2360, archeologists were carefully going through the site. It had been decided to remove the old foundation so that a memorial park could be built for those who had been victims of the augments. It was then that Jessika and her pod were discovered. The Federation were concerned about finding a live augment and for six years the Federation Council and the Starfleet Admiralty debated about what to do with the girl. She posed a unique problem for the ethics of the Federation. A vulcan on the council argued that there was an ethical argument to be made that leaving the girl in stasis constituted a punishment for a crime she hadn’t committed.

Eventually it was discussed that if they were to try waking the girl, extensive tests would need to be done to determine if she posed a threat to the safety of the Federation and its citizens. A behavioral scientist named Mark Wellingford was chosen to oversee the tests along with a team of skilled psychologists.

It would be two more years before Dr. Wellingford would be approved in secret, to wake her from stasis and then conduct the tests at a secure site in a remote facility. Jessika was ultimately brought out of stasis in 2363. From there she was studied, her personality and cognitive functioning were a major focus. However, she was also educated like any other Federation youth might be. Building off of the archived notes of Arik Soong, Dr. Wallingford recognized that Jessika’s aggression would need to be managed rather than denied. He also knew that her intellect needed to be stimulated as much as possible and used goal setting to harness her ambition.

In 2367, a group of Vulcan researchers were granted permission to come to the secure facility to work with Jessika on self control exercises. She took to their methods but also managed to talk them into teaching her some of their martial arts. It was during this time that one vulcan researcher named Sati determined that the teenaged augment was dealing with feelings of self loathing and found her parents to be “beneath contempt” for their actions leading up to her being placed in stasis. Sati argued that Jessika might be capable of rising above the typical behaviors of augments exhibited in the past. They also observed her love of learning martial arts and recommended that she be given exposure to warrior cultures in an attempt to build a sense of discipline and honor as a means of self control. In 2368, three andorians were brought to the secure facility to work with Jessika. They taught her a great deal working from curriculum designed by both the andorians and the vulcans.

By 2370, Jessika was showing a great deal of self control. Dr. Wellingford delivered a report to the admiralty as well as the council making it clear that while a great deal of progress had been made with Jessika, she was very likely an exception. While he was proud of his pupil and test subject, he believed she would have to be carefully monitored for the rest of her life. One of the Admirals was impressed and had ideas of his own. Despite Dr. Wellingford’s protests, the admiral made arrangements for Jessika to attend the academy with only select individuals to know the truth about her nature. It would also be arranged for her to be escorted from class to class and closely watched by a security team.

It was a true test for Jessika. Being around so many new people, light hazing from senior cadets were all new experiences for her. As a young girl she had mostly been locked away in a palace and since being brought out of stasis she had only been around the few scientists allowed to share space with her. The introduction of a rank system with a clear line of progression brought up temptations that she had not faced before as well.

Jessika turned inward, and reminded herself of her mother’s madness, her father’s planned betrayals. She had no desire to become them, or to spend the rest of her days locked in a secure facility. She meditated a great deal and prayed to the Andorian war-goddess Larashkail for the strength to get through this challenge. Keeping her head down, not resisting her handlers when they said no to anything, and working hard on her studies Jessika did everything she could to demonstrate her trustworthiness. She excelled academically and while she wanted to participate in sports and clubs her involvement was quite limited. She was required to blend in, seem human, it was a challenge but she enjoyed a good challenge.

During her second year she was given a little more freedom after the successes of her first year. Jessika was allowed to become more involved in the clubs, given time to socialize a bit. Still, she was watched very closely. Her handlers were never very far away.

When she graduated in 2374, Jessika was exceptionally proud of herself for maintaining her cover, acting within the rules that had been given her, and all that she had accomplished academically. This is why she was furious when she found out that she would not be allowed to continue on to a training ship. Instead she was informed that she would be returning to the secure facility where Dr. Wallingford would be doing additional psychological testing to determine what the four years out of containment had resulted in. He voiced concerns with the admiralty and the council about her majors. Jessika had majored in command and control while also receiving academic degrees in xenolinguistics and engineering. Wellingford’s concerns were that her skills could allow her to escape and disappear becoming a threat to anyone in her path.

For weeks it looked like the experiment was over and Jessika would stay in protective custody for the foreseeable future. That was until Starfleet Intelligence got involved. The Dominion war was waging and they needed the best agents they could get. After pulling a great number of strings, SI was able to get her a temporary assignment as one of their agents. She, along with a team of four others were sent to do long range reconnaissance missions. This series of missions were so successful that it was recommended that she not only remain with SI but that she be promoted.

Just like that, her career began, with everyone cautiously watching her and expecting her to betray them at any moment. Jessika certainly was tempted to show them what she was capable of in that regard but instead put that energy into the operations she was assigned to. After the Dominion war ended, she was a Lieutenant JG and being given slightly more freedom than before.

She was quickly assigned to Task Force 21 gathering intelligence on the C’hakilan Empire after they successfully managed to capture a number of outposts in the Raeyan Sector. This was a big opportunity for Jessika to shine. During that time, she did operations damaging supply lines and attacking infrastructure in the Raeyan Sector. Sabotage, guerilla warfare, and insurgency were her tools while behind enemy lines and it took a great deal of self control to keep from reveling in her role.

During the Armistice Crisis she was a part of the counter operation to secure Starbase 611. Afterwards she found herself promoted to Lieutenant and given all new responsibilities. Jessika remaned with Task Force 21 until it was disbanded in 2385. After that, she requested a leave of absence to travel to Boreth where she hoped to study with the monks and even Kahless himself. It took nearly a year to get it approved and this time she was not actively opposed by Dr. Wellingford. Whether that was due to his retirement or not is not entirely clear. Unknown to Jessika, a handler was sent to watch over her during her time there to make sure that she maintained her cover of being human and to make sure that Jessika didn’t attempt to flee.

After two years studying on Boreth, Jessika returned of her own free will to the Federation. The powers that had watched over her during this time were incredibly impressed with the fact that her time there and return afterwards had gone without incident. Unbeknownst to Jessika it was decided to test her with an actual crew. Not long after, Jessika was told that she would be assigned to a ship with the CO, XO, Counselor, and CMO made aware of her nature.

Jessika wasn’t sure what to think about her new assignment. It worried her that she might struggle socially on a massive starship. After a career in the field operating with small teams, Jessika had gotten used to avoiding certain temptations. The large number of people she would suddenly have to deal with was unknown territory and she worried about her freedom. Worse yet, she worried about the possibility of her proving she was no better than her parents. Jessika voiced her concerns to Starfleet Intelligence and so they agreed to a trial run on a smaller ship.

After a brief stint on a Defiant Class vessel, she was transferred to the USS Ascension to take over as their chief intelligence officer. It was a move that felt rushed to the nervous Jessika, but she did love a challenge.