Andreus Kohl

Early Life (2362 – 2382)

It has been written before that there are only two kinds of officers in Starfleet: those who serve for the duty and those who live for the adventure. Across the years of Andreus Kohl’s application to Starfleet Academy, his diligent studies suggested the characteristics of duty. He was born from the soils of Argelius II, but he was raised by a Gallamite and a Tiburonian — a loving couple who were biologically incapable of reproducing with one another. Because of the obligations of his parents, duty was as familiar to Andreus as hot suppers. His mother served as Administrator in charge of Revith City; his father was assigned to the pleasure planet as Special Projects Officer to the United Federation of Planets Embassy. As inspired as Andreus was by his parents’ devotion to their city and to their world, he sometimes spoke of needing to serve broader purposes. A planet wasn’t big enough for him to believe in. He spoke of the responsibilities of a galactic citizen: to defend and to explore. To search out something, anything, that was new.

Starfleet Academy (2382 – 2386)

Upon his admission to Starfleet Academy, it was smirkingly remarked that Cadet Kohl was in it for the adventure. He conducted himself as the epitome of hedonistic Argelian society. A personable and ambitious youth, Andreus served as mediator in team projects, he joked with professors in lectures, and he had a tendency to wake up in the basic training barracks as often as in his own dormitory. This was in direct contrast with the documents in his Starfleet application, which had described adolescent Kohl’s demeanour as being serious with but a dry sense of humour.

To an idealistic young Kohl, the Starfleet rescue armada for Romulus had been the big damn idea he had been craving.  At the time, FNN and his peers had talked about an entire generation of Starfleet officers who would know no type of service other than the rescue armada. Something about that had appealed to Kohl; being of service sounded like a worthy life. One would think Kohl joined Starfleet for the duty, but stayed for the adventure.

Early on, Kohl had elected for an accelerated medical track. He  never planned to attend medical school; he wanted to be in space. He focused on a nursing specialty. In truth, surgery, virology, podiatry, none of it appealed to Kohl. That kind of education would only slow him down, in his eyes.

It was while Kohl was studying at the medical academy that he met his birth mother, Hamidah Romar. From what she told Kohl, she introduced herself as a priestess of a particularly obscure religious order on Argelius II. Raising children in the temple would never have been an option for her. Hamidah stayed with him for a time, to know him as a fully grown being. She took notice that Kohl had developed a dependency on stimulants, in his desperate attempt to keep up with the brightest minds in his class.  There was no love or pleasure in his use of the stimulants.  Without revealing it to the Starfleet counselors, Hamidah was able to guide Kohl through letting go of the substances, as well as to better listen to his own body. As if that had been her mission, she vanished in the night shortly thereafter.

Nurse (2386-2388)

Kohl was assigned to the USS Berengaria as a nurse. Being Starfleet officers, the crew was very healthy as a baseline, and he was afforded few opportunities to be impressive, or even to be a failure. He followed orders. He did his duty, and that was enough for a while. He spent his days prescribing medication and applying automatic devices that knew how to heal better than his own hands. He participated in triage simulations. He transformed protocols into instinct and muscle memory. Sometimes he went on away missions, but that was just to keep the simulations from becoming repetitive or predictable. Living aboard a starship with extended crew and families, Kohl’s days really began during the simulated night. He spent his evenings studying sculpting and martial arts. He developed crushes on most of his instructors, and acted on those feelings with a couple of them.

After an uneventful start, his crew was ordered to defend Bactricia from invasion by the Sovereignty of Kahless. Kohl thought it would mean red alerts and plasma burns to treat in sickbay. Rather, Kohl became a battlefield medic, seemingly overnight. He sterilized wounds by moonlight, he administered medication under fire, and he performed procedures no nurse is entirely licensed to perform.

Head Nurse (2388 – 2390)

Assigned as Head Nurse, the day Kohl was transferred aboard the USS Guayaquil, all thoughts of handsome security trainers and triage simulations fell out of his head. Kohl’s father was killed in a shuttle accident the same day. Ever since their arguments over the Federation’s decision to withdraw support for the Romulan evacuation, Kohl’s interactions with his adoptive family had been tense, up until the day his father died. Kohl kept his father’s death a secret from his new crew, and found every excuse to avoid going home for the memorial, even when his mother offered to delay the service.

The decision was eventually taken away from Kohl when the Guayaquil itself came under attack by the Sovereignty of Kahless. The Klingon insurgents cared little for the Captain’s pleas that they were a hospital ship; the Guayaquil fled from the Klingons and hid for days in a sensor-obscuring nebula. Kohl’s months as a battlefield medic proved useful when Klingons invaded the ship and Kohl was lucky to survive.

Kohl’s next brush with death came many months later, when the Guayaquil was assigned to a colony rescue mission in the Elbon 861 star system. Kohl spent more time planetside and aboard shuttlecraft than he did in sickbay. Reminding him of his days on Bactricia –but with fewer bat’leths– Kohl dove into his responsibilities with a thrill of nostalgia. However, when Kohl’s shuttle was damaged and crashed into a moon, he was forced to experience the same events that had killed his father.  Kohl was paralyzed, but the worst of it was temporary spinal shock. Bruising around his lower lumbar spine, and nerve dysfunction, impaired his ability to walk for some time. As soon as Kohl could wrangle clearance to return to restricted duty, Kohl put himself to work. Unable to practice medicine, especially in the physically demanding role of a Nurse Practitioner, Kohl was assigned to Guayaquil‘s operations department.  Starship resource allocation was work he could perform at an LCARS console and his education prior to his medical degree hadn’t been completely forgotten.

Operations Officer (2390 – 2396)

In his first missions as an operations officer, Lieutenant Kohl was wracked with insecurities. In one heartbeat, he had been serving as an accomplished nurse practitioner in a leadership position, in the next heartbeat, he was a middling officer trying to prevent the LCARS consoles from exploding or spitting fire.  Furthermore, Kohl’s mobility remained reliant on motor-assist technology, and he was living with undiagnosed emotional trauma from his paralysis.  For a hedonistic Argelian, in particular, such a feeling disconnected from his peers set him on an uncertain and frightening journey.

Unencumbered by distractions, Kohl threw himself into his continuing education by correspondence. During his duty shifts, Kohl embraced his new department by developing relationships with the staff, feeling the need to offer support and eagerness, to make up for what he lacked in advanced starships operational training.  His resourcefulness and emotional support of the operations department made Kohl noticed by the command staff for his next promotion. When the positions became available, Kohl was eventually promoted to assistant chief operations officer.  Like golden handcuffs, the more Kohl succeeded in the operations department, the less he thought of going back to nursing, even after he had mostly recovered from his injuries.  Following completion of his bridge officer qualifications, Kohl advanced to chief operations officer and second officer of USS Guayaquil.

Executive Officer (2396 – 2400)

Commander Andreus Kohl committed to a shift to the command track when he was selected to be the executive officer of the border patrol ship, USS Ayala.

Task Force Executive Officer (2400 – Present)

In 2400, Andreus Kohl was promoted to the rank of captain to serve as Deputy Commander of Task Force 17.  In this role, he operates out of Deep Space 17 and the Task Force 17 flagship, the USS Discovery.