Katie Hawkins

TLDR - Lieutenant Katie Hawkins is a pragmatist who views the universe as a machine that occasionally needs a tune-up. While she believes she has been assigned to a standard exploration vessel, her history with the Pakleds (willingly helping them to make their ships ‘go fast’ and then using their ship’s systems against her would be ‘captors’) and her innovative containment designs make her the ideal (if unsuspecting) guardian for the anomalies recovered and stored by the USS Leviathan.

Physics doesn't care if you're five foot nothing tall or a Gorn, the bolt still turns the same way if you use the right leverage: Lt Katie Hawkins

Katie Hawkins Starfleet Record
Personal Information
- Place of Birth: Banff, Alberta, Earth
- Date of Birth: 31 October 2370 (31)
- Pronouns: She/Her
- Father: Dr Gaten Hawkins (deceased), an ‘Old Fashioned’ GP serving the community of Banff and surrounds in the 24th Century.
- Mother: Mrs Kate Hawkins (nee Bush) (deceased), mechanic, engineer, handywoman for the community of Banff and surrounds in the 24th Century
- Siblings: None

Physical Appearance
- Height: 5‘0” (1.52m)
- Weight: 105lb (47.6kgs)
- Build: Slight, athletic, exceptionally agile, lithe and compact.
- Hair Colour/Style: red hair tied back in a pony tail. She wraps her hair into a bun to keep it out of the way when she’s climbing through the Jeffreys Tubes or in the guts of a machine, particularly if she finds herself upside down.
- Eye Colour: Pale Blue eyes
- Skin Tone: Olive
- Physicality: Compact and highly agile. Hawkins is uniquely suited for structural engineering and Jefferies Tubes navigation. She uses a custom-weighted tool belt to maintain balance in low-gravity or high-angle maintenance shifts.
- Distinguishing Features: Birthmark on the back of her right hand.

Biography
- Early Life: The daughter of a Medical Doctor and a Mechanic/Handywoman, Katie was a prodigy of mechanics and engineering systems. By age 5, she grasped engine principles: both combustion and warp; and by 8 she was ‘improving’ household appliances. Growing up in the rugged terrain of Banff, she developed a practical, ‘fit-it-now’ attitude. Her father had a bedside manner that she has unconsciously brought into her practice when she’s dealing with a ‘sick’ or ‘grumpy’ machine. She talks kindly to the machines, and doesn’t mind the looks and comments she gets. During her primary and middle school years, she did acrobatics and gymnastics, both of which continued into high school at which time she also joined her school’s cheerleading team in high school.
- Academy Years: Accepted at 18, and specialising in the Engineering track, she graduated with highest honours at 22. She swept the board in Engineering results and maintained a top 15% standing in all other subjects. She is the first generation in her family to attend Starfleet Academy and Graduate.
- Cadet Cruise: Due to her grades, she was made ‘Assistant Chief Engineer’ on board the Columbia, which meant she was responsible for a shift on the ship. As a result of her exceptional service, Katie received a glowing reference from her Chief Engineer, a recommendation to be made the new Chief Engineer and a promotion to Lt (JG). She spent five tours of duty on board the Columbia as Chief Engineer before seeking a fresh challenge.
- Outpost Innovation: The challenge she accepted was as Chief of Operations on a deep-space outpost that had Cardassian, Romulan, Ferengi and Bynar tech on board in addition to Federation Tech. On board the outpost, she led a multi-species team of engineers in integrating the different technologies into a cohesive Federation framework. She and her team wrote papers on what they did, and although some questioned the wisdom of using such tech together, the improved operational efficiencies couldn’t be argued with.
- Pakled Vessel Incident: In 2398, while stationed to the outpost, a Pakled Mondor-class ship, the Mojo, drifted into the sector. They sent out a standard, slow-toned distress call: “We have trouble. Our ship is slow. Can you make us go?” While the Outpost Commander was wary, Katie saw the sensor readings and was instantly hooked. The Mojo wasn’t just broken, it was ‘Frankenstein’ in vessel form. It had a stolen Klingon warp core, being fed by a repurposed Tholian power cell, not to mention the Romulan power cell that bridged to a Federation EPS Grid or the Cardassian relays to power a Vulcan sensor array. Katie volunteered to go before the briefing was finished. She saw it as a professional challenge, one she couldn’t pass up or ignore. When she beamed over, the Pakled tried their usual routine, with the Captain attempting to intimidate her, but (at 5‘0” and 105lb) she just walked under his arms and headed straight for the primary EPS Manifold. With ten minutes, she wasn’t their prisoner, but rather their project manager and foreman. She realised they didn’t understand the mathematics of their ship, but that they were excellent collectors. She spent three days on the Mojo by choice. She didn’t just fix their ‘troubles, she completely remapped their power distribution grid using a mix of Bynar algorithmic shortcuts, Ferengi power saving tips and her own Banff ingenuity. Her thirteen year old self came to the fore and she took command of their engineering deck, issuing commands which were followed by the Pakleds. Then when she said it was time to leave, the Pakleds tried to stop her. But she came prepared for such an occurrence. She used her knowledge of their mismatched systems to create a feedback loop, shutting down their internal sensors, making her essentially invisible to them, allowing her to walk back to the transporter, and return to her posting.

Katie's Debrief: They though they were trapping me, but they just handed me the keys to a ship that used Cardassian relays to power a Vulcan sensor array. I wasn't about to leave that ship until I could see how they handled the thermal dissipation on that mess, and to tell them how to be more efficient.

Outpost Commander: Lieutenant Hawkins is highly capable, though she has a dangerous tendency to treat potentially hostile alien vessels like a 20th-Century muscle car she found in a barn.

The Containment Field Challenge: Newton-Class containment
To secure her position on the Leviathan (which she didn’t realise she was applying for - she thought it was just a long range exploration vessel) she developed a better mouse trap for high-risk artifacts (Newton-Class anomalies). She remains unaware that her design was not hypothetical, but essential preparation for the Leviathan’s mission (and her role in it). She thinks it was just a challenge that was put out that she was pleased to complete.

The Hawkins Phase-Null Cage

• Chassis: A dodecahedron forged from tritanium-ceramic composites.
• Midas Touch Containment: Magnetic Flux Suspension is used to suspend the artifact in a perfect vacuum via intersecting tractor beams, meaning the transmutation effect of the artifact has no physical medium to infect.
• Animatum Tunicum Containment: A Bynar-inspired dampening weave creates a psionic and sonic vacuum, muting the object's ability to project a compulsion field to nearby personnel.
• Fail-Safe: If the container's integrity field is compromised, it initiates a Temporal Shunt. This freezes the interior in a micro-stasis field until a secure command code is entered.