Commander Katherine Brescoe

Official records on the Commander's past are quite elusive, the official
records state that she was born on Coruscant, one of the most famed
worlds, due to it being the capital of the Empire, and a center of
engineering. Of her parents, little is known, except that they worked for
some Imperial research foundation.

She joined the Imperial Navy at the age of sixteen, some six months
before the Death Star II was destroyed by the Rebels. Her reasons for joining was
that she wanted a chance to work on the latest technological applications and
get a chance to work on certain high-powered, very sensitive devices. Being a prodigy,
she accepted, despite the fact that she was technically too young to join the Imperial Navy.

In the Academy, she performed very well indeed at the physical tests,
excelling in Martial Arts and Marksmanship. However, her primary skills
were obviously in engineering and technical subjects where she graduated
as number one in every single class without a single failure. She was
the best cadet to go through technical education since the foundation of
the Empire. However, her military skills were not as good, probably
because she did not really apply herself to these subjects as she did
with scientific matters.

Due to her impressive skills, she was assigned to the ISD Pilum. However,
she was subjected to the usual Imperial prejudice against women and her
technical skills were not respected. She also got into trouble for accusing
her superior of plagiarising her material. In fact, this accusation almost got
her dismissed from the service. Her next superior presented a design that
looked superb on paper, and passed all the tests, but when put into action,
it misfired spectacularly. Commander Brescoe supposedly told him,
“Hey you stole it, not me”, before he took the honorable way out, and shot himself.

She was later on transferred to a scientific outpost in the Arkatan system where
she would classify and study the various gaseous anomalies that were common
in that area. It was around this time that she started becoming very accident prone.
Several reports indicated that she often had facial bruising. The CO and medical officer
behaved in a fashion most unbecoming of any officer, constantly verbally abusing
Lt-Commander Brescoe. Some months after her being assigned to this position, the entire
outpost was blown to bits. Every single computer circuit in the outpost was also destroyed.

However, the evacuation was without losses, except for the Medical Officer and the CO
who were both trapped. It seems that they were killed when low level plasma washed over them
(it would also seem that this would be just about the most painful death imaginable). The investigation
revealed that the explosion was accidental due to the massive and unexpected destruction of the
Fusion Reactor (this model had been used for a few millennia, but had a tendency to explode in this fashion).

After this disaster, she was transferred to the ISD Behemoth, where she
served as the Chief Engineer. There were some wild rumors about her
during this period, most of them started by men who were angry that
their advances were turned down flat. According to these rumors, she
would occasionally physically attack people who were annoying her. One
particularly wild rumor stated that she once single handedly dispatched
a Wookiee with her bare hands. She was also reputed to have a near
pathological fear of scanners and medical personnel.

Some years ago, she was transferred to the fleet under the command of the
then-Commodore Valberg where she became his Chief Engineer. After he
went on to join Admiral Sheppard, Brescoe joined the science department
under Admiral Glasgow. Even so, it would seem that due to her being a woman,
she did not receive the respect that was due to her.

From: Medical Officer; ISD Revenger
To: V. Admiral Mark Sheppard; Task Force 23 Commanding Officer
Subj: PRELIMINARY MEDICAL REPORT ON COMMANDER BRESCOE

PHYSICAL CONDITION:
Commander Brescoe is in peak physical condition, but she has
consistently refused a close medical examination for security purposes
(in fact it would almost seem like she has dodged them). Strangely
enough, the medical records of her past career are either non-existent,
destroyed, or have been removed by orders of then-Commodore Valberg.


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