Petty Officer, 3rd Micki Callahan

Micki is a blend of her father’s rugged sun-baked heritage and her late mother’s energized, natural spirit. Her complexion is a warm tone dusted with a light spray of freckles across her nose. Her eyes are a bright amber and her gaze carries a playful alertness that suggests a gregarious personality. Her hair is a multi-toned mane of deep chestnut and blonde highlights, usually worn in two thick, practical braids that keep it away from the dangerous components and tools she works with every day. When she lets it down, it falls in heavy curls. She speaks with a distinctive voice which is a blend of playful warmth and raspiness.

Father: Jackson Callahan (Age 46):
Jackson and Micki have a relationship built on the silence of a shared workbench and years of unspoken shared grief, a bond where "I love you" is usually swapped for "pass me the 10mm." After his wife’s tragic death, Jackson raised Micki with all he had left, grit and quiet work. He sees her as the only one of his children who truly understood his passion and pain. While her brothers looked at the garage and saw a dead end, Mikayla saw her father’s life’s work—a masterpiece of calloused hands and stubborn pride. Their connection is a close bond founded on a mountain of unspoken struggle. They may not get all sappy, but Micki is very aware she’s the favorite child. She harbors a silent resentment for her father’s lack of emotional availability after her mother’s death.

Mother: Stephanie Callahan (Died: 2142):
Micki quietly cherishes her mother’s memory, a faded tapestry of soft edges and half-remembered scents that stands in sharp contrast to the hard, metallic reality of her adult life. Stephanie, a woman of warmth and steady grace, provided the emotional equilibrium the Callahan household lost the moment she died. To an eight-year-old Mikayla, her mother wasn't just a parent; she was the link to a world where softness and vulnerability were acceptable. Though she looks so much like her mother, Micki wonders if Stephanie would approve of the woman she has become. Stephanie was always so feminine, kind, and modest, and Micki is often the complete opposite. She often wears her mother’s silver wedding band on a necklace to remember her.

Brother: Leo Callahan (Age 20):
Despite the fact that Leo is an aspiring seminarian and Micki has no interest in God whatsoever, their relationship is surprisingly warm. Despite their different paths, they get along very well, but Micki’s unwillingness to be vulnerable prevents them from truly being close. They are really just two kids who survived the loss of their mother in different ways. Leo is smart enough to evangelize his sister slowly and subtly and Micki is gentle enough not to make fun of him too much.

Brother: Jackson “Jax” Callahan Jr. (Age 18):
Micki and Jax are far too alike to get along. He’s bold, brash, and rude, while she seems to take little seriously, but at the end of the day they’re both hardheaded and scarred since childhood. Jax, who is currently clawing his way through his first year of pre-law, views the world as a series of arguments to be won and hierarchies to be climbed, seeing Micki’s life in the grease as a waste of a good brain. They are both very good at telling each other exactly what they think, but they still love each other when all is said and done.

Best Friend / Roomate: Siobhan “Shiv” O’Malley - Nurse (Age 21):
Shiv is her roommate and the sister Micki never had and their relationship is a jagged, fiercely loyal pact between two women dealing with their own struggles in the same way. Shiv, the cynical trauma nurse from Belfast, joined Starfleet when there was nothing left for her on Earth. They are a Bad Influence on most they come in contact with on the lower decks, bonded by a mutual disdain for the brass and a shared dark humor that thrives on the margins. Whether Shiv is "proscribing" medical stimulants to help Micki finish a 40-hour repair, or Micki is installing party lights in Shiv’s bunk, their friendship is built on a series of off-the-books favors and deep, unspoken trauma.

Friend: Basheer “Bash” Al-Fayed - Junior Propulsion Specialist (Age 21):
Bash and Micki are trouble together. Their friendship is a constant "push and pull" of two reckless spirits who recognize the same fire in each other. It is not that they don't feel the magnetic draw, but they are both too fiercely independent—and perhaps too broken—to let a "serious" tether slow them down. They rarely address the tension directly, instead channeling that energy into a competitive rivalry of sarcastic insults or drinking contests.

Friend: Kojo Boateng- MACO Specialist (Age 26):
Kojo is quiet and, in some ways, is the opposite of Micki’s entertaining and youthful social style, but their relationship is built on the trust of two people who have survived the depths. Kojo is a stoic MACO veteran from Accra and a man who is as immovable as a mountain in body and will. They rarely need words to communicate; a simple nod in the mess hall serves as their most profound dialogue. While others are intimidated by his size, Micki treats him with a playful, rough-and-tumble familiarity.

Friend: Ravi Varma - Junior Systems Specialist (Age 23):
Ravi and Micki have a friendship based on wit and skill exchange above all else. Ravi is highly educated and knowledgeable while Micki is a savant in her field. Together, they’re capable of engineering space-based solutions neither of them could alone. Ravi, a sharp-tongued systems analyst from the Mumbai sprawl, views the universe as a series systems to be optimized, while Micki sees it as a machine to be felt; together, they bridge the gap between pure math and mechanical intuition. They rarely agree on the "correct" way to solve a problem, usually spending their shifts in a heated debate that sounds like an argument to outsiders but is actually their most comfortable form of collaboration.

Early Life on Earth

Born in the bustling city of Miami to Jackson and Stephanie Callahan on April 7, 2134, Mikayla’s childhood was colored by the glow of shop lights, the feeling of grease on every surface, and the scent of burnt oil. Her father owned a car garage called Callahan’s Custom Chassis while her mother was a kindergarten teacher. Jackson and Stephanie were an unlikely pair, and in many ways the two of them were opposites. Stephanie was overtly sweet, gregarious, and warm-hearted while you could hardly get more than a neutral-faced grunt from Jackson on the average day; Stephanie was bright and well-educated while Jackson could barely read. Yet their love for each-other was obvious, and it was clear that their marriage brought out the best in each of them. They had Leo Callahan in 2136 and Jackson Callahan Jr., whom the family called “Jax”,in 2138.

The Callahan children were raised mostly by Stephanie while Jackson worked long hours in the shop. Though a gruff and difficult man at times, Jackson always had a soft-spot for Mikayla and she soon developed a love of cars to compliment his own. She joined her brothers in their enthusiastic vehicle play, shunning the baby-dolls and houses her mother would push on her. To the three of them, Jackson wasn’t just a mechanic; he was a magician of machines. Even at this tender age, he taught Mikaya that a digital sensor could lie, but the vibration of the frame never did.

In 2342, when Mikayla was only eight years old, Stephanie was driving Mikayla to a dance lesson on the other side of Miami when they were involved in a multiple-car pile-up. Mikayla got away with a few cuts and bruises, but her mother was tragically killed. The family was suddenly devastated by the loss of their maternal heart, leaving Jackson to raise three young children in a messy, chaotic home. Jackson’s sister, Charlotte, tried to step in to fill the void, but many of the responsibilities of motherhood simply went unfulfilled. Though Mikayla quickly adjusted to her role as the woman of the house in the best way she could, she soon learned that her father wasn’t equipped to have the kind of conversations which would help the family heal. He retreated into his work, and she learned that, if she wanted to interact with him at all, she had to do the same. She started spending daily time in the shop, getting her father to talk to her as long as it was about cars. Everyone began calling her Micki.

As she grew into her teenage years, Micki spent more time playing rough, getting dirty, and cursing when her dad couldn’t hear than her younger brothers ever would. As she grew more interested in her father’s world, Jax found his solace in religion and Leo in books and shows about war and politics. She developed a close circle of mostly-male friends in high school and spent all of the time she was not studying or in the shop partying and losing herself in the chaos and thoughtlessness of youth. A callous seemed to form around her heart that she decorated with humor, charm, and subtle meanness.

By eighteen, Micki was Jackson’s effective partner, but the steady decline in his business was evident. The world was moving toward the stars, and the "dinosaurs" her father loved were becoming museum pieces and luxury items. With business slowly drying up, she made a sentimental promise to her father that the Callahan name would still be written on the engines of the fastest machines ever built. She didn't want to leave the garage—she wanted to take it to Warp 5. It wasn’t clear to her whether she made him that promise out of a genuine desire to make a mark or simply to make him proud.

Enlistment & Training

In 2152, Micki walked into a recruiting office not as an aspiring officer, but as a non-commissioned officer. She rejected the four-year Academy track, believing herself too messed up for theoretical engineering and diplomatic etiquette. She opted for the Starfleet Technical Enlisted Program (STEP), wanting the shortest path between her and a starship. Once she was away from the Miami heat and the casual environment of her dad’s shop, her six months at the Enlisted Training Center in San Francisco stretched the limits of her personality and knowledge base in a way that made her very uncomfortable. Micki’s instructors were baffled: she could hot-swap a thermal regulator like she was born for it, yet her ability to follow orders was constantly put into question as she argued with her instructors and did things her own way. Despite her obvious skill, she was almost washed out of the program before she realized she was going to have to change.

After she was issued her final disciplinary warning, Micki started to actually try and keep her mouth shut once in a while. Even though she was being watched more closely than the other recruits, her efforts paid off. On her good days, which were becoming far more frequent, she proved to be a natural leader of the grease monkey class. She wasn’t much for apologizing or going along with plans unquestioningly, but she learned what she could get away with and what she couldn’t and then she taught the lesson to her peers.

USS Nelson

Because of her record, Micki wasn't exactly handed a spot on the flagship at graduation, but at least her skill and the improvement she had shown saved her from planetside assignments. She was assigned to the USS Nelson, an older, clunkier vessel that lacked the prestige of the newer models. It was there, however, that Micki truly found her footing as a Starfleet engineer. She treated the Nelson’s aging parts like the beat-up trucks in her dad’s shop, giving them nicknames, learning their quirks, and coaxing power out of them that the manuals said wasn't there. Over the next three and a half years, Micki became the life of the Nelson’s lower decks. She was the one who talked Chef into weekly pizza for lunch and turned her quarters into the undisputed prime spot for great music, drinks, and questionable decisions. She found her niche as an unofficial DJ, bartender, and the enlisted crew’s social fixer. Even though she was sometimes a handful for her superiors, she had a good gauge for what they would accept and what they wouldn’t, and she toed that line tightly. She proved that she didn't need a commission to be a vital asset on the crew as well, demonstrating a very high mechanical aptitude and ingenuity that the crew of the Nelson found invaluable on several occasions.

USS Challenger

Eventually, after proving her worth on the Nelson, Micki was reassigned to the USS Challenger (NX-03). She arrived not as a rookie, but as a an 22-year-old damage control specialist who kept her father’s pocket knife in her back pocket and his love for the purr of an engine in her heart.