Sterling Badr-Garret

Sterling Badr was born to Josif and Soni Badr shortly after their marriage on Betazed. The two young parents were both unhappy with the bustling nature of a Federation core world, yearning for the quiet of colony life. Serendipitously, a psychiatrist and transport pilot were much needed by the colony at Minos Korva, and before Sterling was one year old, his family had moved just four light-years from the Cardassian border. Josif Badr traveled away from home often but made the most of his time at home. He taught Sterling the basics of piloting at a very young age, something Sterling has appreciated ever since. As a result of being one of very few Betazoids on Minos Korva, Sterling became very talkative by Betazoid standards as he grew up.

Ongoing conflicts with the Cardassian Union had always threatened the colony at Minos Korva, but after the onset of the Dominion War, it became clear that Starfleet had little ability to ensure the safety of the strategically insignificant colony. In 2374, Sterling’s family evacuated Minos Korva and returned to Betazed only months before the Federation would lose Betazed to the Dominion.

At the time of the Battle of Betazed, Sterling was a teenager. He was caught in the middle of a firefight between Starfleet officers and the invading Jem’Hadar and took a Jem’Hadar disruptor blast to the lower back. The lethality of the blast was reduced by first passing through dense foliage. Nevertheless, he would have died if not for the immediate assistance of a Starfleet medic and the proximity of the nearest hospital. Sterling spent most of the Dominion occupation of Betazed in the hospital, recovering. After the war, his parents decided to stay on Betazed until Sterling was old enough to decide his own future. Sterling completed his secondary education on Betazed before applying to Starfleet Academy. When Sterling left for the Academy, his parents moved to the Darona colony in the Betazed system.

Before arriving aboard the USS Bismarck, Sterling had little romantic experience. He had developed an unrequited infatuation with his first- and second-year Academy roommate. Although the infatuation lasted for nearly two years, he set aside his feelings when the other cadet began dating a mutual lady-friend. Shortly after transferring to the USS Bismarck, Sterling began a relationship with Lt. Jared Garret. Over the course of their first mission working together, their relationship developed into an Imzadi bond. Their relationship has been endangered twice by the Bismarck’s often dangerous mission. In the first instance, Sterling, along with a dozen or so other crew members, contracted a deadly disease while investigating the recently found USS Bermuda. In the second instance, Jared was nearly killed and severely wounded after throwing himself in front of the Bismarck’s warp core when a terrorist attempted to fire on it with a disruptor. Jared’s near death experience and the amputation of his left arm were an incredibly difficult time for Sterling emotionally.

Late in 2387, Jared proposed to Sterling on a beach of Deadalus IV. Sterling and Jared were married on the USS Bismarck in early 2388. Sterling’s best man was Lieutenant Commander Joshua Miller, and the ceremony was performed by Commodore Paul Shepherd. Sterling and Jared took the surname Badr-Garret.

Sterling Badr joined Starfleet in the early years following the end of the Dominion War. More than any other factor, Badr’s insatiably inquisitive nature intrigued the admissions committee. His home world’s proximity to the Cardassian Union and the Ensign’s interactions at a young age with a variety of races in a politically turbulent region of space also played a role.

Badr’s adolescent piloting experiences led him to focus on flight control studies in his second year at the Academy, and although he was a talented pilot, his instructors steered him into the sciences, where they felt his curiosity would yield greater returns. After graduating from the Academy with a major in astrophysics, Ensign Badr was admitted to the Daystrom Institute, where he wrote his dissertation in the same field.

Following his doctoral studies, Ensign Badr was assigned to the Intrepid-class USS Sagan as Astrometrics Officer. Badr accomplished a great deal on the Sagan, as its mission took it into an unusually dense region of stellar phenomena. Following the Sagan’s mission, he was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade and re-assigned to the USS Bismarck as Chief Science Officer, an impressive assignment for a young officer.

Badr’s first mission aboard the Bismarck saw him investigating the cause of an unusual explosion on the colony world of Aresenoba. Lieutenant Jared Garret and Badr discovered that the explosion was a result of illegal experimentations with protomatter. On this mission, Badr got his first experience commanding a starship, serving as a duty officer while other senior officers were occupied on the planet. Following this mission and only after a few weeks of service aboard the USS Bismarck, Badr was promoted to Lieutenant Senior Grade and awarded the Commendation for Brave Conduct.

During a mission to retrieve the recently discovered USS Bermuda, Lieutenant Badr and several other crew members were infected with a deadly airborne disease that caused serious hallucinations prior to death. Unlike his fellow crew members, Badr did not exhibit the symptoms of the disease, despite having contracted it. The medical staff determined that Badr’s natural Psilosynine, a neurotransmitter involved in Betazoid telepathy, was inhibiting the disease’s development. After isolating a large enough sample from Badr, the medical staff was able to synthesize sufficient amounts of the neurotransmitter to treat the infected crew. Following this mission, Lieutenant Badr was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross.

At the start of 2386, the USS Bismarck was assigned to an intelligence mission, wherein the crew was to retrieve a double-blind asset. Badr’s assignment was to monitor the progress of the intelligence team surreptitiously. His work was interrupted when terrorist hostiles attacked the intelligence team and the USS Bismarck. At that time, the Bismarck was boarded by a substantial number of terrorists. After the Bridge security officer was knocked out and the tactical officer killed, Badr took over the security station and directed the counter-intrusion effort, which included isolating computer control for most sensitive systems. After terrorists took hostages in Sickbay, Captain Paul Shepherd and Badr negotiated the release of the hostages in exchange for themselves. Thereafter, the two escaped and the terrorists were subdued with Neurozine gas.

Following the intelligence mission, Lieutenant Badr successfully completed the Bridge Officer’s Test.

During the Bismarck’s next mission, Badr coordinated the evacuation efforts of New Ganges X from the Bismarck’s bridge. He later researched the means by which unknown Romulans were destroying stars in the Neutral Zone. After the Bismarck and the Hyperion put an end to the Romulan renegades, he submitted his findings in a paper to Starfleet Science. Unfortunately, he was not confident that the paper would ever make it to publications, as its sensitive contents would likely be classified by Starfleet Intelligence.

Now on the opposite side of the Federation, the Bismarck took part in the extradition of Klingon political activist Koquar to Qo’noS. During the mission, Badr developed a single-ship version of the tachyon detection grid originally conceived by Geordi La Forge. He also devised a plot to fool six Klingon warships into thinking that the Bismarck was crippled, experiencing warp core failure. Following the mission, Badr was promoted to Lieutenant Commander.

Following a short shore leave at Earth, the Bismarck was involved in an impromptu mission to save Paul Shepherd’s son from kidnappers. After successfully stopping the kidnappers, the Bismarck returned to the Pacifica Expanse to investigate pirate activity. Sterling and a team of engineers assisted the crippled USS Onslaught return to Deep Space 19.

On a diplomatic mission to the planet Halon, Sterling assisted Ray Jackson and Jared Garrett in finding a way to increase the task group’s velocity. When a Bismarck away team was trapped in a nuclear power plant on Halon, Sterling attempted with little success to find a way to transport the team to safety.

Later that year, Sterling departed the Bismarck to take a leadership position at Starfleet Science.

In 2399 Sterling accepted a position as the Director of Wormhole Research & Operations for the Barzan Wormhole.