Carol Freeman

Captain Carol Freeman was a female Human Starfleet officer who lived during the 2380s, and served as the commanding officer of the , which specialized in second contact missions.
==Starfleet career==
===Pre-Cerritos===
In her early days as an officer, Freeman was close friends with William T. Riker, and often got into trouble with him. Before commanding the Cerritos, she served aboard the with a Tellarite named . She also became friends with Sonya Gomez at some point. ()
Prior to Stardate 58053.9, She escorted the Enterprise out of Spacedock. ()
===USS Cerritos===
====2380====
During a second contact mission on Galardonian homeworld, Galardon, Freeman appointed Ensign Brad Boimler to monitor Ensign Beckett Mariner and report any breach of protocol. Boimler accepted the assignment. Freeman told Boimler to keep this assignment secret and dismissed him. During the away mission, the Cerritos became infected by a rage virus brought back by Commander Jack Ransom, who was bitten by a Galardonian insect. This quickly resulted in an outbreak that consumed much of the ship. Freeman became infected during the struggle but was soon cured after Dr. T'Ana synthesize a cure from some slime that Boimler was covered in after being suckled by a Galardonian spider cow.
Freeman met up with Boimler again in her ready room, and when she asked about Mariner's behavior on the mission, he reported that Mariner did not breach protocol. Freeman doubted his claims, and Boimler simply blamed the slime for having an effect on his memory. Frustrated, Freeman dismissed him, and then put in a call to Starfleet, and was answered by her admiral husband. She told him that she was fed up with Mariner's behavior and wanted her transferred back to the , but before she could say anymore, the admiral tried to excuse himself. ()
On Stardate 57501.4, the Cerritos was on a mission to Cardassia Prime, only to be informed by Starfleet that the mission had been scrapped. The Cerritos was instead ordered to Gelrak V to deliver "diplomatic trinkets" to the inhabitants. This angered Freeman and believed Starfleet did not take her ship and crew seriously because they don't do enough to get their respect. Freeman started scolding every crew member she saw not working. After learning about buffer time through Boimler, she assigned her crew on strict deadlines. In about a week, the crew became overworked and stressed due to the deadlines and lack of buffer time. Freeman even started following the deadlines, which was taking a toll on her as well. She eventually found herself running the whole bridge by herself.
Things got worse when the Gelrakians started attacking the Cerritos when the away team insulted them with the wrong gift. Despite the attack on her ship, Freeman still had her crew continue their tasks as Gelrakian boarding parties consumed the ship. Freeman eventually came to her senses when Boimler urged her to terminate the deadlines and give the crew back their buffer time. She was at first unsure, but Boimler argued that buffer time gave them time to do their jobs properly. He told Freeman that she was a great captain and asked for her to let crew be a great crew. Inspired by his words, Freeman immediately terminated the deadlines and order the crew to do whatever they needed to take back the Cerritos. With buffer time back, the crew was able to fight back against the Gelrakians.
Later on, Freeman commended Boimler for opening her eyes and revealed that they were instituting a new ship-wide mandate known as the Boimler Effect, which encouraged shortcuts and preventing people from just blindly following the rules, and that the crew would be able to build in buffer time when they desire. She even had the rule carved into a plaque. ()
During a salvage mission of a generation ship, Freeman became fed up with Mariner's antics, especially after she disrespected her in front of Captain Durango. Commander Ransom suggested assigning her to all the worst jobs on the Cerritos to potentially influence Mariner to request a transfer off the ship. However, the plan backfires when Mariner found ways to enjoy her tasks, despite their odious nature. Seeing that assigning her to worse jobs would not work, Freeman came up with an idea that would certainly work. She knew Mariner hated moving up in rank, so she took advantage of this by promoting her two ranks to lieutenant and making her miserable by constantly calling her to multiple trivial tasks. Freeman offered to find Mariner another post on a different ship if she felt like she did not fit in.
At some point, the generation ship suffered a hull breach when the moved position without realizing that the position was affecting the strength of the tractor beam. A molecular fluid that generates life leaked from the ship and drawn into the tractor beams. The fluid consumed both ships, terraforming their exterior and interiors. Freeman and Mariner worked together to get to the ship's environmental controls where Mariner was able to neutralizing the terraforming effect by venting the affected areas with Parizene gas. The Cerritos was saved, but the Merced had suffered beyond repair. So, Freeman and Mariner transported the crew directly into the stasis chamber aboard the generation ship.
Freeman commended on her daughter's performance and expressed that she was happy that they were able to work together. She hoped they could continue working together as mother and daughter, but after Mariner disrespected her again in front of Admiral Vassery while being awarded medals, Freeman demoted her back to ensign. ()
On a mission to Mixtus III to assist the in a controlled demolition of the planet’s moon, Freeman was tasked with negotiating with the planet's inhabitants and bringing them to agreement to allow the moon to be destroyed, as it was on a trajectory to fall into their atmosphere and cause a catastrophic planet-wide event. They had mostly selfish individual reasons for blocking the demolition, and Freeman was able to come to agreements with most of the factions to allow the demolition by offering alternative arrangements, technology and compensations. There was only one delegate that was holding out. He was from the neighboring planet Mixtus II, and Freeman tried to accommodate him as best as she could, with much thought and consideration. However, when it was revealed that he and his wife were the only two people on the planet and that they were trying to throw their weight around because of their wealth, Freeman immediately, calmly and deliberately ordered the moon imploded. ()
The Cerritos was involved in a standoff with Drookmani salvagers intent on scavenging older Federation equipment from a salvage yard and Freeman was trying a diplomatic approach with the Drookmani captain to prevent them from obtaining it as some of it was still sensitive technology. While she went back and forth with him, she tried to show restraint and calm as far as she could and insisted on trying to negotiate with the Drookmani captain, despite showing visible frustration. Unbeknownst to her, the lower deckers had accidentally disabled the ship's defenses, and when it came time for Freeman to show some force, she found the shields and phasers were not operational at a critical moment. In the end, the Lower Deckers disabled the Drookmani ship unintentionally, as they were dealing with their own crisis at the time. ()
She was part of an elite team from the Cerritos to liaise with the Pisepian agricultural colony on a covert mission involving 'highly volatile' rulot seeds which she said she could be "called upon to plant at any moment." During this period, the Cerritos was temporarily commanded by Amina Ramsey, who joked at how serious Freeman took her obviously relatively simple mission. ()
On Stardate 57818.4, the Cerritos rendezvoused with a Clicket ship that delivered Freeman after she had obtained from them a map of the Romulan Neutral Zone. The two ships then exchanged brief phaser fire after Freeman showed gratitude for their help, as Clickets interpreted gratitude as hostility. The whole incident was part of an overall rescue mission to recover Imperium Magistrate Clar, an official from K'Tuevon Prime, from Romulan captivity. The mission resulted in Clar holding a thank-you party masquerading as a trial, where the events of his rescue were recounted. After the 'party', Freeman caught some flak from the crew for allowing the masquerade to happen as it did without their knowledge, as they assumed it was a real trial. They wanted the senior bridge crew to be more open to keeping them informed for future missions. Freeman initially agreed but then was evasive when they questioned other aspects of the Clar rescue mission. ()
Freeman, at one point, had to interfere in her daughter's attempt to ‘liberate’ an oppressed species on a planet where they were being routinely bred and eaten by a more dominant species. Though Mariner saw it as correcting an injustice and expected praise from her mother, Freeman instead had to try and repair the misunderstanding, stating that Starfleet had no right to interfere in their planet's politics. Freeman tried to remind her daughter of certain rules and regulations and declared her daughter a ‘loose cannon’. Mariner had expected to be thrown in the brig for her actions, but instead Freeman told her she was sending her to therapy with the ship's counselor, Migleemo. After an unproductive first meeting with the doctor, Mariner instead turned her therapy into a holonovel based on the crew's logs and dealt with her feelings about her mother that way. When it ended, Mariner realized her mother was actually an important force in her life and was protecting her as best she could, not just from Starfleet but from herself. Mariner met Freeman in a corridor and apologized for the incident on the planet. This caused Freeman to ask Migleemo at her own next therapy session what Mariner told her, which of course he couldn’t disclose, but it made her no less suspicious of her daughter's motives. She got so agitated that Migleemo, in his style of using food references, said Freeman was being a 'pineapple', a metaphor for being prickly and difficult to deal with. Freeman wasn't pleased with that, either. ()
Believing that the holonovel program had been completed, Boimler found it instead still running, and accidentally discovered that Freeman and Mariner were in fact mother and daughter, a fact contained in the crew's logs, and one that the pair were trying to keep secret. ()
While on a mission to Beta III, Freeman and Ransom found that the inhabitants had gone back to worshiping Landru and had to remind them that the computer was not to be treated as a god, as Captain Kirk had told them many years previous. Upon returning to the ship, she confided to Ransom her concern that Starfleet was not keeping track of what was happening on these types of 'legacy' worlds, and societies visited by earlier Starfleet ships, and that the Cerritos should be checking in on them from time to time. While preparing to leave Beta III, Freeman was told that some crew members were still on the planet. It turned out to be her daughter Mariner, and Boimler, who were handing out art supplies to the children of the planet, in the hopes it would help rekindle their society's creativity and give them something else to think about besides Landru. While doing this, Boimler had inadvertently left his combadge open, and revealed to Mariner that he was aware of the secret that Freeman was her mother, which was overheard by Freeman and the rest of the bridge crew. Freeman angrily beamed the now arguing pair of ensigns directly to the bridge, much to Boimler's surprise. ()
Freeman confronted Mariner over the fact that their secret was now known, and that one of her reasons for it was that she didn't want it to be known that Mariner, the most demerited officer in the fleet, was her daughter. While they both tried to downplay its significance to the crew, both suddenly found themselves beset by supplicating colleagues and crew mates trying to play for special favors and attention. ()
Freeman and the Cerritos answered a distress call from the , a new California-class ship under the command of Captain Dayton. The Solvang had been attacked by a Pakled Clumpship while in the Kalla system. Freeman at first dismissed the implied seriousness of the call as she thought that, knowing Dayton, she probably had overreacted to a minor systems problem, but when they arrived at the Solvangs location, they found the ship destroyed and Dayton and her whole crew killed. The Pakleds then began attacking the Cerritos, incapacitating Freeman and the rest of the bridge crew. With the Cerritos outmatched and herself seriously injured and out of other options, Freeman allowed Mariner, Boimler and Sam Rutherford to find a solution to stop the Pakled attack. While doing this, Pakled boarding parties had begun to hack the ship apart and attack the crew. Freeman joined her daughter and others in hand-to-hand combat but was knocked almost unconscious by one of the Pakleds. Lt. Shaxs rushed Freeman to sick bay with a worried Mariner behind them. The Pakled ship was eventually destroyed, but several other Pakled ships warped in and began attacking the nearly defenseless Cerritos. They were repelled with the help of a late-arriving William T. Riker and his ship, the . Freeman eventually made a full recovery and was able to oversee repairs to her beloved Cerritos, refusing any unnecessary cosmetic upgrades as she wanted her ship to look the same as ever. Later on, in the ship's bar, Freeman was reunited with her old friend Riker, who reminded her that he had been Mariner's mentor, and also about how he and Freeman got into much trouble together when they were younger, a recollection she vehemently disputed. ()
The Battle of the Kalla System showed Freeman and Mariner's mutual disdain for one of Starfleet's secrets: the organization's inability to maintain relationships with legacy civilizations and allowing threats to materialize from sources they thought they could ignore. It caused both mother and daughter to agree to work together ‘under the table’ to get things done where Starfleet might not approve so easily, as Mariner was already good at doing that. The event also raised Freeman's profile among 'important people' as her admiral husband put it, amplifying her hopes of finally being recognized for her accomplishments and advancing her career. () 
Eight months after the Battle of the Kalla system, Freeman and Mariner had been working together doing side missions where Mariner had her mom’s approval to do things Starfleet might not approve of but which they both thought were necessary to their second contact missions. Freeman thought she was starting to give her daughter too much freedom and wanted to find a way to reel her back in without regressing their relationship to their old animosity. During a second contact mission to Apergos, Mariner’s side mission inadvertently triggered an ancient device on the planet that gave Ransom supernatural powers. Ransom began to attack the Cerritos in orbit, confessing that the reason for it was his displeasure at being unofficially displaced from the command structure by Mariner and their arrangement. He also said he knew that both Mom and Daughter disliked the arrangement secretly. In response, both confessed to wanting out of it, feeling like it was more difficult to work together than they thought. Freeman and Mariner's efforts managed to pacify and subdue Ransom, who returned to normal. Freeman apologized to a recovering Jack and promised to start taking him more seriously as her XO. In addition, Freeman and Mariner agreed to start doing only some side missions together, apparently realizing that a less structured approach to their arrangement would be better for them both. ()
On Stardate 58001.2, Freeman and the Cerritos were assisting Chairman Siggi of The Collectors Guild to catalogue and dispose of the vast artifact collection of Kerner Hauze, one of its late members. While happily agreeing to help with this job, Freeman was privately derisive of the Guild's collecting habits and attitudes. Siggi needed Starfleet's help to dispose of anything that might be hazardous. Freeman assigned a team of lower deckers under the supervision of the ship's new head of security, Lieutenant Kayshon, the first Tamarian in Starfleet, to the away mission. During the mission, Freeman received the results of her most recent Starfleet performance evaluation, which characterized her as a micromanager and recommended that she show more trust in her subordinates. When Ransom reminded her about contacting the away mission to check on the progress of Kayshon and his team aboard the Guild ship, she instead decided to show trust in him and wait. Later, she was still trying to show she could be a 'hands-off' captain, when Tendi and Rutherford contacted the Cerritos from one of the Guild ship's escape pods. They displayed the miniature form of Lt. Kayshon, who had been turned into a puppet during an accident aboard the ship that they didn't report earlier. When Freeman saw this, she was incensed, and vowed never to be such a 'hands-off' captain again. () 
Freeman and the Cerritos welcomed a visiting Tom Paris aboard on a morale tour, telling stories. When he arrived on the bridge, she greeted him and allowed him to take the conn, with the joking proviso that he didn't accidentally take them to the Delta Quadrant. At that moment, Ensign Boimler, crawling through the ducts above the bridge, fell through the ceiling. Because of his now disheveled appearance, which made him resemble a Kazon, he triggered Paris who started attacking and beating up the ensign. The bridge crew, including Freeman, could do nothing but watch until the conn officer alerted Freeman that a shuttlecraft (piloted by Mariner and Tendi) was approaching the Cerritos at high speed. It bounced harmlessly off the ship's shields, causing no damage, leaving Freeman puzzled. ()
During a mission to Frylon IV to investigate the sighting of a Mugato and deal with Ferengi Gumato poachers, Freeman got involved in a scam run by an alien named who destroyed his ships and then blamed it on Starfleet. Since Freeman had inadvertently destroyed his shuttle with the Cerritos tractor beam, she tried to show her ability to make amends and live up to Starfleet ideals by taking responsibility. She gave Hyde one of the Cerritos shuttlecraft but was also conned into giving him all of the belongings in her ready room. Annoyed, Freeman agreed to the deal. Then, during a call with her admiral husband, he told her of the scam that Hyde was running in that area, and Freeman tried not to look like she had just fallen for it. Before Hyde could escape, Freeman caught him with a tractor beam and gave him a choice: Either spend time for his crimes in a Federation prison, or work on the newly established Mugato Preserve on the planet below as penance, now run by the Ferengi for a profit. The last scene shows Hyde about to shovel Mugato dung, to everyone’s satisfaction. () 
While escorting the Doopler ambassador to a starbase for negotiations, Freeman was also hoping to attend a Starfleet Command Party at the same installation with her senior staff. During transit, Freeman accidentally triggered the sensitive ambassador’s natural duplicating ability to the point where the ship was nearly overrun with kvetching Doopler ambassadors, threatening to overwhelm it entirely. Freeman figured out that the way to cause them to 're-dooplercate', or recombine, was to be nasty to them. Having solved that problem, Freeman and her staff went to the party on the starbase, only to be turned away for being California-class officers. Incensed, Freeman tried to force her way into the party by stating to the bouncer that she was proud of her lowly ship and its crew. Although that failed, she, the rest of the senior crew and some other lower deckers did manage to find their way to a local bar that Mariner and Boimler were already at, and it was there that Freeman realized that not getting into the big party didn’t matter; she was now with the people that mattered most to her. Of course, she had also beamed the Doopler ambassador into the Starfleet party in an act of quite understandable pettiness, with predictable results. ()
On Stardate 58105.1, Freeman and the Cerritos were at Pakled Planet where she was tasked by Starfleet to attempt to negotiate a cease-fire with the Pakleds, who were continuing to carry out unprovoked attacks on Federation trade routes. She noted in her log that she'd been chosen because of her previous experience with the Pakleds and was hopeful that this would be recognized as a major achievement on her record. However, when Shaxs reminded her that her diplomatic skills could ultimately get her a better ship, she tried to appear modest and downplayed its significance, as she didn’t think the Pakleds would be that difficult to deal with. Freeman and Shaxs arrived on the surface of the planet and were immediately greeted by Pakled Ambassador Grubdin, and also to the rather confusing structure of Pakled leadership hierarchy when Grubdin informed her he didn’t have the authority to negotiate cease-fires. Curiously, he also mistakenly greeted her as Captain Janeway. Freeman then received a call from Ransom, with a message that a Pakled prisoner named Rumdar had just beamed to the Cerritos and that he appeared to be requesting asylum. The Pakleds were angered by this, believing that Freeman had taken him against his will, and declared that she would be their hostage until Rumdar was returned to them. 
Ransom and Kayshon treated Rumdar as a refugee at first, but became suspicious when Rumdar started asking to see classified material. Quickly realizing that he wasn't what he seemed, they contacted Freeman and informed her. When they told her that he hadn’t gotten any information yet due to his obviously incompetent behavior, she told them to keep him talking to see if he revealed anything about the Pakled attacks. Meanwhile, trying to continue the diplomatic mission on the surface, Freeman was still trying to speak to a Pakled leader that could negotiate the cease-fire. They continued to misidentify her as Janeway and became more distrustful of her when she turned down an offer of mushfruit. When the Pakled Queen appeared and demanded to speak to Rumdar, Freeman contacted the Cerritos to have him speak to her. To her surprise, Ransom informed her that Rumdar disappeared and they could not find him. Realizing the situation was getting out of hand, Freeman told the Queen that Rumdar was indisposed in the bathroom at that moment but that he said she should negotiate the cease-fire. When the queen also stated that she didn’t have that authority, Freeman became more visibly annoyed.
When the Pakleds began to become more intimidating around Freeman and Shaxs, he recommended they beam out, but Freeman refused, saying that she didn’t want the stain on her record of not being able to deal with the Pakleds. When the Pakled King finally appeared, she greeted him. Just then, the Pakled Emperor also appeared, but as she greeted him, he was killed by a sudden palatial uprising, which the Pakleds called a ‘rebelution’. The new leadership quickly surrounded Freeman and Shaxs and threatened them with death. At that moment, Rumdar finally returned from the Cerritos, after having been discovered floating in space when he mistook an airlock for a bathroom. 
He revealed, somewhat unnecessarily, that he was a spy sent by the new leadership, and that he learned, among very few other things, that Freeman was not Captain Janeway. He also stated that the Pakleds didn’t want peace. When he smugly boasted that he didn’t
give up any information himself, Freeman tricked him into revealing that the Pakled plan was to smuggle a Varuvian bomb onto Earth. She praised him for his espionage prowess and she and Shaxs returned to the Cerritos, leaving the Pakleds to believe they had just defeated Captain Janeway. Later, Freeman told the on-duty bridge crew that after discussing the mission with Starfleet, they were pleased with the Cerritos crew's efforts, and that it called for a celebratory drink. ()
After completing a mission to a planet devastated by a hundred-year war started by an evil supercomputer named AGIMUS, Freeman then answered a distress call by a ship from her chief engineer Andy Billups' homeworld. The ship, the Monaveen, was the royal yacht of Billups' mother, Queen Paolana. Freeman had been acquainted previously with the Queen and did not think highly of her. Sure enough, Paolana’s ulterior motive in asking the Cerritos for help was to try and get her son to resign from Starfleet, where he wanted to remain, and ascend to the throne of their planet by tricking him into losing his virginity. It was this manipulative situation that confirmed Freeman’s attitude towards Paolana and she became protective of Billups and understanding of his situation. An apparent accident on the Monaveen caused what appeared to be the death of Paolana and it almost got Billups to the throne through their unusual process of ascension. Thanks to the efforts of Rutherford and Tendi, this was exposed as a ruse, and Billups remained the Cerritos chief engineer. ()
Freeman and the Cerritos were hosting a Starfleet drill instructor consultant intent on testing the ship’s company through a series of drills and role reversals. Before this, Mariner, Tendi, Boimler and Rutherford had been inadvertently left on a satellite for six hours after an EVA mission while the Cerritos answered a distress call. They were only in their spacesuits and had nearly frozen to death before the Cerritos realized and retrieved them. Mariner was understandably upset with her mother about this and accused her mom of considering the lower deckers ‘expendable’ after this incident. Freeman said she had to make life and death decisions all the time and their status didn’t enter into her thinking. She told Mariner and the others to report to the cargo bay where the drills were being conducted with the rest of the crew.
The drills consisted of each crew member entering a simulator holopod and experiencing different situations and scenarios based on previous Starfleet missions and encounters. Freeman and the rest of the senior bridge crew were sent down to the lower decks to experience their duties while the lower deckers became the bridge crew. Freeman initially thought the lower deckers had it easy and thought they were treating them just fine. That view changed when the bridge crew were put through lower deck scenarios of their own.
Freeman herself appeared (apparently without her knowledge) in one of the scenarios as a simulated holographic version of herself in a compromising sexual position with a simulated holographic Dr. Migleemo. This particular drill scenario was intended for her daughter Mariner, who failed the test upon seeing her mother and the counselor naked together, in addition to seeing many other simulated friends and crew mates in similar, over-the-top lewd activities. 
During a group drill on the Bridge, Freeman and Mariner started bickering and failed the drill in record time as a result. Freeman had revealed that the drills were publicly viewable, so she saw some of the things Mariner had failed at and was teasing her about it. In fact, it turned out that all the drills were rigged so that all the crew members would fail. When Freeman and Mariner found this out, they confronted the instructor, a Pandronian named Shari yn Yem. She told them that it was a plot by her to keep her job, as Starfleet didn’t consider her services essential anymore as more important ships always passed her drills. She thought the Cerritos an easy target since her captain had just left four ensigns to freeze to death.
Freeman and Mariner banded together and showed Shari how tough the ship was and what they dealt with daily, which scared Shari enough to convince her to pass the whole ship and crew. In the process, Boimler was actually the one crewman doing well with his Borg drill simulation and Freeman recognized him directly, calling him one of the best officers on the ship. Freeman also showed she had learned from the experience to better appreciate the lower deckers by giving them one of their better food replicators. Freeman and Mariner also enjoyed the mutual feeling of 'ruining a jerk's career' as they had caused Shari to resign from Starfleet. ()
Freeman and the Cerritos were on a twelve-hour warp to the Kontaran system for a planetary survey. Since this was a largely empty stretch of space, Freeman was able to give the crew some time off to pursue their own interests. She herself spent some mother-daughter time together with Mariner, playing board games and getting things off their chests during phaser target practice on the holodeck. While both of them enjoyed their time together, the trip was cut short by unusual energy readings detected near their warp path. Freeman ordered the Cerritos out of warp to investigate. They found a Pakled ship apparently threatening a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, but when both ships opened fire on the Cerritos, Freeman realized she had uncovered collusion between them. The Cerritos returned fire but was outmatched by the two alien ships. Fortunately, a Vulcan cruiser, the , warped in and joined the battle, having detected the same anomalous readings. The Cerritos and the Sh'Val together were able to force the Pakled ship to retreat, but the Klingon ship had left the battle early, causing Freeman to wonder whether or not they even considered it to be their fight. She thanked the Vulcan captain and reported the incident and its implications to Starfleet. ()
When the Cerritos was recalled to starbase to rendezvous with the to assist in a first contact mission by the latter, Freeman was reunited with both her admiral husband and her old friend, the Archimedes captain, Sonya Gomez. Freeman was briefed on the mission and also was surprised by her husband with news of a long-awaited pending promotion. After both the Archimedes and Cerritos had left for the Laap system for the mission, it was revealed that Mariner had accidentally learned of her mother's promotion and had told the senior bridge crew, who showed their displeasure at not being informed. When Freeman told them that the promotion wasn’t yet official, she also told them that she would not be able to take any of them with her, which upset them further. Freeman was visibly upset with Mariner, who had told the bridge crew to try and sabotage her mother's promotion because she secretly didn’t want her to leave the Cerritos.
At that moment, the Archimedes was disabled by an exploding planetoid nearby and was sent hurtling towards Lapeeria, the planet scheduled for first contact. The circumstances did not allow for normal procedures for the Cerritos to rescue the Archimedes, and when options on the bridge were exhausted, Freeman turned to Mariner, hoping to repeat the success at the Battle of the Kalla System and find a rule-breaking option. This time, however, her daughter was at a loss. Freeman threw up her hands in disgust, and headed for her Captain's yacht, thinking she would have to rescue the ship herself. Mariner followed and a discussion ensued with Freeman telling her daughter she needed to start becoming more trusting of people. Their argument was interrupted by Tendi and Rutherford, who emerged from hiding in the yacht to offer an unusual solution that would involve removing the ship's hull panels but they needed to accomplish this in less than a day. Freeman discussed the unorthodox idea with Rutherford and the others and accepted it immediately. After Billups confirmed to Freeman that the plan had a great chance of succeeding, she set the whole ship to work removing the outer hull panels and rigging the ship's interior for the dangerous run through the asteroid field towards the stricken Archimedes.
During this process, Freeman and Mariner had another argument where Mariner told Freeman she was glad she was leaving and never wanted to work with her again, which saddened her mother. Fortunately, they were able to apologize to each other and make up, with Freeman admitting she had been a jerk to her daughter. Under Freeman's charge, the Cerritos crew successfully navigated the asteroid field and rescued the Archimedes, preventing the ship from crashing into Lapeeria, and without a single loss of life.
After the rescue, a recovering Captain Gomez offered Freeman the opportunity to finish the First Contact mission in her stead. Freeman accepted, and although nervous, successfully opened Lapeeria to the Federation, with the help of their hosts' custom of drinking to excess when welcoming new visitors. Mariner was by her side and showed her confidence and pride in her mother's recent accomplishments.
An intoxicated Freeman then informed the Cerritos crew that she was turning down the promotion to remain on the ship as Captain. She said she had finally learned that it was her home, and her place was there, with her crew. This celebration was cut short by news that a Starfleet delegation was coming aboard. While Freeman and her staff greeted them with the news that she was turning down the promotion and wanted to stay, they immediately put handcuffs on her and told her she was under arrest for collaborating with Klingon extremists in the destruction of Pakled Planet. Freeman and the others protested, but she did not resist arrest and told them not to tell the rest of the crew. She spoke too soon, as the rest of the crew, anticipating she had changed her mind about leaving, had lined up for her departure, and were surprised and dismayed when they instead saw Freeman being led away in handcuffs, and the ship with her aboard warping away. ()
Several months later, Freeman had been facing a military tribunal for allegedly conspiring to blow up Pakled Planet. Some of the evidence presented against her included video footage of her in a cloak, handling the Varuvian bomb. Mariner, Tendi, Rutherford and Boimler decided to mount their own rescue mission to free and exonerate Freeman. They stole the Cerritos from its spacedock impound and took it to Earth, where they were stopped by Starfleet Security. While trying to evade security, Freeman, her husband Alonzo Freeman and the rest of the senior crew suddenly appeared on the Cerritos. Freeman stated she was there because the trial was over, and the result was that she was found not guilty. The Pakleds were found to have framed her through an elaborate scheme to blow up their own planet to force the Federation into helping them relocate to a more resource-rich planet, and it was determined with the help of Morgan Bateson and Tuvok that they had blown up their own planet themselves. Carol credited Starfleet for making the right decision and both she and her husband reminded Beckett about 'trusting in the system'. Freeman again took command of the Cerritos where she, Beckett and Alonzo appeared for the first time as a family and discussed Beckett's future in Starfleet, particularly after she had just stolen a Federation starship. While acknowledging her daughter's good intentions, Carol lamented the fact that she and her husband had covered for their daughter and excused her behavior for long enough. Carol told Beckett she still loved her and recognized her immense potential but also said that, as her mother, she couldn't be the one that made the final decision on whether or not her daughter remained in Starfleet because Beckett didn't see her parents as authority figures. Alonzo agreed, and both parents decided to give Beckett one last chance to decide if she really wanted to remain in Starfleet. Carol elected to give her first officer Ransom the job of overseeing and evaluating Beckett's conduct and behavior and he would decide her future in Starfleet. ()
While being 'hunted' aboard the Cerritos by the Kromsapiod K'ranch, Boimler ran into Freeman, and begged her to stop the hunt. Initially, she contacted security to stop it, but when she found out it was K'ranch that was hunting him, she allowed it to continue. Carol remarked, fondly and with a little thrill in her voice, that earlier in the day she had shared a 'lovely brunch' with K'ranch, noting that he was 'quite the charmer', and even had shared Mimosas with him (which he thanked her for). It was at that brunch that she learned of his species' customs and was glad that he had found someone to participate in his Venarix hunt. She reminded Boimler of his duty to respect other cultures and also about keeping his word. ()
On a mission to Jengus IV with the to determine why Federation scientists were being turned to statues by the indigenous Scrubble, a silicon-based race, Freeman and the Carlsbads Captain Maier were tasked with relocating the science outpost and finalizing a peace treaty between the two parties. Freeman, in a small bout of California-class competitiveness, was eager to impress the crew of the Carlsbad. At the same time, Tendi was assigned to be Freeman's trainee for the day as part of her own science officer training. Dr. Migleemo had advised Tendi to learn to stand up to Freeman and her starship captain ego. While waiting for the Scrubble delegation to arrive on the Cerritos to finalize the peace treaty between them and the Federation scientists, Freeman met with Captain Maier, a bold, fresh faced young man who made the mistake of calling Freeman's negotiating tactics 'old school'. The Scrubble delegate attempted to give Freeman a token of their appreciation, a sacred Scrubble totem, which was a small pyramid-shaped rock. Freeman, annoyed by Maier's comment, tried to pawn it off on him for his collection, but he refused it, citing Freeman being the senior captain. In reality, neither wanted it, so tension ensued. Tendi scanned the rock at Freeman's request, and said she was getting unusual readings from it, but Freeman and Maier were too busy arguing to notice. The Scrubble threatened not to sign the treaty if their rock was not accepted. While trying to get Freeman's attention in the confusion, Tendi smashed the rock, exposing a spy device and a plot of collusion between the scientists and the Scrubble to learn Federation secrets and sell them. In Freeman's words, the scientists wanted to purchase better equipment and the Scrubble wanted more rocks, which baffled her. Maier later apologized to Freeman, who said she was impressed with his ship's performance. Freeman gave Maier a neutralized piece of the rock for his collection, noting that she had kept the larger section for herself. ()
While being accidentally possessed by the spirit of Minooki and flying around the ship wearing a Masaka mask, Freeman transformed the Cerritos into their ancient temple several times. Fearing the ship's engineering crew was being overworked by the job of repairing the damage she caused (or rather, the damage that Minooki caused, she claimed), she arranged for herself and the engineering crew to spend time on the Dove, a Starfleet-affiliated spa and rest therapy ship, for some mandatory rest, relaxation and stress relief therapy. Activities included massages and sand gardens. Freeman and all the engineers were dressed only in short bathrobes and terry slippers for their time on the ship, and also all wore wristbands that indicated their stress levels by color. After a schedule that included a mud bath for her, Freeman discovered the engineers were trying to sneak work on their own little engineering projects during their own activities in which they were supposed to be relaxing. The thought of them still working and not taking part in her relaxation scheme began to frustrate Freeman. During a mani-pedi session, Freeman discovered that the engineers were trying to subvert the activities and they revealed they were only doing it to satisfy Freeman. This made her angry, saying that she thought her crew respected her enough to try her vacation plan. They said they did respect her and that they only didn't want their stress to affect her. When her anger turned to hysteria (to the point where veins were visibly bulging on her forehead and her wristband turned black), the resort staff realized it was her that needed the treatment instead of her crew. She had been repressing months' worth of stress and this was exacerbated by the Minooki possessions, and her stress levels were higher than normal. The staff took extreme measures and put her in the puppy playpen, expecting their cuteness factor to cure her, but it had no effect. They were going to send Freeman to Starfleet Medical on Earth for more thorough treatment, but the engineers didn't want this to take her off the Cerritos. She was ultimately saved by the engineers, who refitted a turbolift into a machine that removed stress. They stated that it was working on their engineering projects and coming up with solutions to problems that naturally relieved their stress. They put Freeman in the turbolift, and it quickly de-stressed her to a very happy, renewed woman with normal stress levels. She praised the Cerritos engineers for their efforts to the Dove staff. Freeman's faith in her engineering team was also renewed, and they were all eager to get back to work. ()
====2381====
While on their way to a joint mission with the and deliver a consignment of luxury goods in support, Freeman and the Cerritos were reassigned on route to Deep Space 9 by Admiral Les Buenamigo. He ordered Freeman to head the treaty negotiations with the Karemma, a Gamma Quadrant mercantile species. Freeman protested, but Buenamigo said it would be a good opportunity to help heal wounds of the Dominion War. A frustrated Freeman went to quickly brush up on her knowledge of the Karemma while the Cerritos docked at Deep Space Nine. Freeman, Ransom and Shaxs went aboard the station to meet with the Karemma's trade minister Korzak, who was upset that the meeting arrangement had been changed, but Freeman pacified him with the gifts they had brought. Korzak was difficult to deal with as Freeman toured the station with him, but she was able to appeal to his business instincts and the promise of franchise rights to keep him negotiating. When she introduced him to Quark, the Ferengi bartender was not pleasant to Korzak and it nearly started an argument that Freeman tried to keep from getting out of hand, but it escalated into the Karemma shutting down the station's power and kidnapping Quark, taking him to their ship and attempting to escape to the Gamma Quadrant via the wormhole. Thanks to the efforts of Tendi and Rutherford, who were trapped aboard the Karemma ship at the time, the ship was stopped before it could enter the wormhole. The Karemma were detained, and it was revealed that Quark had years previously stolen a Karemma replicator he used to make his drinks replicator for his bar, and that they were actually arresting him for the crime. Freeman offered both Quark and the Karemma a deal that set Quark free and gave the Karemma 76% of all Quark's franchise profits in exchange for a trade agreement. ()
Freeman and the Cerritos received a distress call from Peanut Hamper who was stranded on Areolus, a remote planet populated by a pre-warp bird species. The Areore were once a spacefaring civilization but renounced their technology after a series of interstellar wars devastated their people. When it was revealed that Peanut Hamper had deceived the Areore to demonstrate her attempt at redemption, Freeman had the Exocomp committed to the Daystrom Institute. ()
A holographic version of Freeman was part of Boimler's holodeck film Crisis Point II: Paradoxus. She captained the Cerritos while it was under attack by Romulans and took part in their pursuit along with the rest of the (simulated) bridge crew. ()
On Stardate 58996.1, Freeman and the Cerritos were on their way to Ornara on a mission to check on their progress after the visit from the 17 years earlier. This was the first mission of the newly implemented Project Swing_By, an initiative for which Freeman had been lobbying Starfleet for many years as a means of checking on legacy civilizations before they regressed into their old self-destructive behavior, and it would be the California-class that would be taking on the responsibilities for this program. Freeman considered it a hard-fought achievement of her career, but this was tempered by the news from Admiral Buenamigo that a Federation News Network reporter, Victoria Nuzé, would be coming aboard the Cerritos to document the ship's first Swing By mission. It unsettled Freeman because she didn't want to make a bad impression on the reporter, and it caused her to tighten her ship, cancelling crew activities and reshuffling duty shifts to make sure the most capable officers and crew would be on duty. Victoria also conducted interviews with the crew, and unbeknownst to Freeman, Mariner (who was not on the list of crewmembers to be interviewed) managed to get herself one. Meanwhile, the visit to Ornara was a dud; the Ornarans were doing well and didn't need Federation help. Buenamigo then suggested she check in on Brekka, a neighboring planet that had a history with Ornara. While en route, Freeman discovered that Mariner had spoken to Victoria and had apparently upset the entire expose to the point where Freeman finally got fed up with her daughter's antics and reassigned her to Starbase 80. After arriving at Brekka, Freeman exposed a Breen incursion and occupation of the planet. Breen interceptors attacked the Cerritos in orbit, disabling and very nearly boarding her, but the attack was repelled in time by a prototype of a new class of entirely automated Starfleet ship, the which was declassified to Freeman by Buenamigo after the attack. Freeman was baffled by the sudden and timely appearance of the ship. Later, after viewing Victoria's expose, Freeman realized that she and the Cerritos had been portrayed negatively, accusing her of running a loose and chaotic ship, filled with conflict. It was also revealed that Mariner was the only crewmember that praised the ship, the crew, and her mother, and it was the rest of the crew that had inadvertently made Freeman look like a fool. Furthermore, by having Mariner removed simply for being interviewed, Freeman had ended up making Victoria believe her to be a 'cruel taskmaster'. With great regret at what she had done to her daughter, Freeman tried to contact Mariner to apologize but could not get hold of her as she had already resigned from Starfleet. Devastated by this, a remorseful Freeman is left wondering where Mariner is. () 
After the mission to Brekka and the appearance of the Aledo, Freeman was recalled to Starfleet Command on Earth, where the admirals expressed their disappointment in her and questioned her ship's professionalism. Admiral Buenamigo then formally recommended the decommissioning of the California class ships and replacing them with his drone ships, and the admirals accepted his plan, to Freeman's shock and dismay. Freeman protested, saying the ships hadn't been tested and said the move would undo centuries of progress in Human exploration of the galaxy. She later told Buenamigo that his drone ships couldn't navigate the same complexities she, a Human, could, while he claimed that his ships could do the job with no potential loss of life. Freeman vowed to fight the decision. To placate her, he recommended that she should be promoted to admiral and be promoted to fleet captain of the Texas-class, but she balked at this, saying she didn't want a desk job. In response, Freeman proposed a method of proving the California-class' mission: a race between the Cerritos and the Aledo to see which could better perform a series of second contact missions. She believed their familiarity with these duties would give them an edge and then pep-talks her crew, saying that they are doing this for the entire California-class. In a timed and judged race, both ships performed three tasks on three different planets, and the result was the Aledo edging out the Cerritos due to the latter stopping to confirm a microscopic lifesign on one planet before colonization, according to procedure. Freeman was visibly disappointed over the apparent failure to uphold the worth of the California class' mission.
The Aledo, however, didn't perform the necessary lifesign scan. Back at the space station, a dejected Freeman overheard Tendi mentioning this in the ship's mess hall, and with renewed confidence confronted Buenamigo about his ship's failure to follow procedure. She told him she was going to take the matter to the council. Meanwhile, Rutherford discovered that the Aledo had code he was developing years ago in his 'previous' life for Buenamigo. Realizing he had later reused the code for Badgey and that the Aledo presented a grave danger, he rushed to Freeman's ready room to warn her and confronted Buenamigo while he was still talking with Freeman. It was revealed that Buenamigo had erased Rutherford's memories, and that he had set up Freeman. He had been trying to discredit her and the other California-class ships. He also revealed that he knew of the Breen incursion on Brekka. Now, Freeman was furious at him, knowing he could have gotten her and the Cerritos crew killed, but despite her anger she still tried to appeal to his better nature, to no avail. Despite Rutherford's warning that the AI of the Texas-class ships was unstable and corrupted, Buenamigo then activated the independent autonomous AI of the Aledo, and it began attacking the station along with the other two Texas-class ships, causing severe damage and casualties. During the attack, Buenamigo was killed by his own creation. Freeman tried to stop the attack by hailing the Aledo and informing its AI that its 'creator' (Rutherford) was aboard and used that information to lure all three Texas-class ships away from the station at high warp to prevent further civilian deaths. After hearing her bridge crew suggest different methods of stopping the trio, Freeman permitted Shaxs to eject the ship's warp core to stop them, on Boimler's insistence that she consider his suggestion. The idea worked, but of the three ships the Aledo survived, and it began to attack the now dead-in-space Cerritos. At that moment, Mariner appeared with every California-class ship in service. All the ships, including Mariner's, attacked the Aledo and their combined firepower destroyed it. Back at the damaged station, all the California-class ships' crews convened for a celebration in the Cerritos bar, and the Cerritos herself received a new warp core. While this was being done, Mariner returned to the Cerritos and reconciled with her mother, who happily reinstated her daughter into Starfleet service. ()
On Stardate 58724.3, Freeman and the Cerritos were tasked with escorting the decommissioned starship from a mysterious space station in the Portelo system to Earth for permanent placement in the fleet museum. The ship had been prepared as a museum by an alien named Beljo Tweekle. While transporting artifacts from Voyager to the Cerritos for safer travel, Tendi and T'Lyn accidentally allowed an orchid petal to get into the transporter with Billups and T'Ana when they returned to the Cerritos. This caused a transporter malfunction which combined the memories and DNA of the two officers into one brand-new being that wanted to be known as T'Illups. After visiting with him in sickbay, Freeman was sure she could solve the problem on her own. Since this same thing had happened on Voyager during their mission to the Delta Quadrant, Freeman requested a copy of Janeway's logs from Tweekle, where she discovered Janeway's solution to the problem. Freeman was horrified to find that the former Voyager captain had essentially murdered Tuvix, and she decided she wasn't going to do the same thing. Since they were in the Alpha Quadrant, she planned to take them to Starfleet and let them fix the problem. She hoped there was time to find a solution before T'Illups himself discovered what Janeway had done. At that moment, T'Illups was doing just that, and devised a scheme to survive by combining Cerritos crewmembers in the same manner to form a 'Tuvix Army'. He lured Freeman to his quarters and despite promises from Freeman that she wouldn't harm T'Illups, he forcibly combined her and Dr. Migleemo in a makeshift transporter he constructed in his quarters, creating a new being called 'Captain Dr. Frigleeman'. Frigleeman began working with T'Illups to combine the entire Cerritos crew into hybrids, but were quickly stopped when Tendi and T'Lyn discovered a solution to bring them all back to normal. After all the crewmembers were separated and returned to their former selves, Freeman acknowledged a little embarrassment and awkwardness during her recovery, along with the others. Later, she presided over promotions of some of the Lower Deck ensigns, including her own daughter, Beckett Mariner. She noted that the incidents on Voyager that day only provided further proof that they were accomplished officers with the ability to find creative solutions to problems. () 
During a mission to a space station containing an alien zoo, Freeman took the opportunity for some downtime on the holodeck, where she played out a fantasy of becoming the 'President of Starfleet' and thanked the assembled audience with a performance of 'Inaugural scatting, which a newly promoted Lt. J.G. Boimler had to listen to in his new quarters, along with the foreplay antics of Shaxs and T'Ana in an adjacent holodeck, much to his dissatisfaction. () 
On Stardate 58759.1, the Cerritos was visiting the Federation world Corazonia, a large ring megastructure controlled by Vexilon, an ancient supercomputer that perfectly controlled the Corazonians' environment. Vexilon was experiencing unpredictable malfunctions that affected the ring's climate, and the Cerritos crew was asked to diagnose and repair the problem. Freeman led an away team that investigated Vexilon while another team, led by Boimler, would retrofit the Starfleet power array installed during first contact. The Corazonians shared a bond with their caretaker computer, and Freeman recognized it throughout her visit, treating Vexilon carefully and cheerfully. Freeman accessed Vexilon's controls and decided that instead of letting the engineers do the work, she would attempt the repair herself, having minored in archaic technology when she was at the Academy. She rolled up her sleeves and set to work, determining that Vexilon just needed an update to its operating system, which she attempted, but it stalled partway through, leaving the supercomputer unable to consistently maintain the planet's climate. She had not considered that she needed to perform a shutdown in order to update the system. Even after consulting the supercomputer's ancient operator's manual, Freeman was not able to restart Vexilon and summoned Billups to the surface, who suggested Freeman restart the system in safe mode for debugging, but instead she triggered a full re-genesis reboot, which began to cause chaos as it started to re-terraform the ring. Freeman found a solution in an ancient scroll and contacted Boimler and told them to stop the retrofit and put it back the way it was in order to force a restart of Vexilon's operating system through the Starfleet array. After Boimler and his team were able to put the relay back to its previous configuration and shut down the relay, Freeman continued to work to deactivate the re-genesis process and restart Vexilon. The updated supercomputer was projected to continue to be able to provide a stable enviromnment for the Corazonians for at least the next thousand years. ()
Freeman had the pleasure of informing Lieutenant Tendi that the Orion was being granted leave to attend her sister's wedding on their home planet, Orion. When Tendi initially showed reluctance to go, Freeman reminded her that Starfleet wanted to show goodwill after the disappearance of an Orion ship. Later, during a negotiation with the Chalnoth Captain Coqqor for a rare chance to scan an oscillating nebula, Freeman summoned Boimler and Rutherford to the bridge just in time for them to witness the stalemate the two captains' talks had reached. They suggested to Freeman their own recent method of working out their differences and coming to a compromise: dressing as Mark Twain and coming to agreement in the author's accented character drawl in a period holodeck program. They persuaded Freeman to try it with Coqqor, and though both tried it dressed and in character, Boimler accidentally insulted Coqqor's accent, causing him to become agitated. Freeman questioned Boimler and Rutherford what made them think the idea would work, and Boimler responded that dressing up and talking in Twain's 'homespun aphorisms' helped them decide how they would do chores such as jointly watering their bonsai plant. This got the attention of Coqqor, and they took him to see their plant in their quarters. Coqqor proceeded to eat the plant and drink the mist water, which satisfied him enough to agree to allow Freeman to scan the nebula, while she feigned being intimidated by him to seal the deal. Later, Freeman forbade Boimler and Rutherford to play Mark Twain on the holodeck. () 
Freeman and the Cerritos were tasked with transporting three hard-partying female Betazoid diplomats to Risa. She had been ordered to make sure they had a good time while aboard the ship. While giving them a tour of the Cerritos, the ladies read Freeman's mind and sensed her discomfort with the menial duty of transporting three 'sexy drunks' from place to place, to which she responded awkwardly but positively. Then, one of the diplomats, Cathiw, began flirting with her, preferring her 'hard-to-get' mindset and suggesting that Freeman was 'withholding' her sexual desires. Freeman replied that she was flattered but happily married and used that to stay focused on her job, despite Cathiw's follow-up question asking whether Freeman's husband was aboard the ship with her. When showing them sick bay, Freeman reminded the three women that hangover cures and prophylactics could be found there. She also had to remind Dr. T'Ana not to eat any of the Betazoids, as it was revealed that was Caitian practice in the past. 
Freeman then took the Betazoids to the ship's bar for a party in their honor. The party was starting to become more intense, with crewmembers displaying extreme emotions. Freeman desperately tried to beg her crew to maintain control but became agitated and emotional herself when her crew started to boo her. It was at that moment when she realized that something was affecting the crew. When T'Lyn suggested the problem was their three guests and they should call for help, Freeman and Mariner initially dismissed it, with Freeman saying they could not risk breaking the communications blackout but also protesting because one of the Betazoids, Dolorex, said she was 'hot. Her daughter Mariner agreed that she had a hot mom, and Freeman thanked her, adding that she had started doing something new with her hair. When Cathiw once again approached Freeman with amorous flattery, calling her 'the most eligible captain in Starfleet', Freeman again reminded her that she was still married, and refocused herself enough to get the three Betazoid women to sick bay for examination. When they found out that they were being scanned for pathogens, specifically Zanthi fever, which afflicted Betazoid females after a certain age. Freeman tried to empathize with them, being close in age to them. This unnerved them enough to believe telepathically among themselves that Freeman wanted to confine them to quarters and that she suspected their real purpose. 
After the scans proved negative, Freeman didn't believe the result and said her crew wouldn't normally be acting emotional like they were, and didn't believe their presence on the ship was a coincidence. When she tried to confine them to quarters, the three diplomats dropped their cover and subdued the crew in sickbay with the goal of kidnapping Freeman and taking her to the bridge. An emotional Freeman was not unhappy with the revelation, instead very excitedly taking confirmation of her suspicion as an affirmation that she was good at her job. On the way to the bridge, with Freeman in handcuffs, the three women revealed they were officers of the Betazed Intelligence Agency on a secret mission. When they got to the bridge, Freeman temporarily disabled one of the women enough to warn the bridge crew to stop them but after a brief fight, they were able to incapacitate the bridge crew. Freeman asked them why they were trying to manipulate the crew since Betazed was a Federation member and ally and they responded with the accusation that Freeman was trying to frame them for influencing the crew's emotions. They then revealed their true mission: they were trying to gather information on a mysterious ship that had been attacking different ships throughout the quadrant. They also said that their own emotions were somehow unfocused at that moment and therefore not to blame. The three women then commandeered the Cerritos to return to Betazed to resolve the situation there. Freeman was horrified to see that their course took them through the Romulan Neutral Zone but was confident that her crew would act soon to retake the ship.
Elsewhere, T'Lyn later determined that she was the source of the out-of-control emotions on the ship, not the Betazoid diplomats. Meanwhile Freeman, correctly sensing tension between Dolorex and Cathiw, was able to get Dolorex to read her mind and thus showed her Cathiw's previous trash-talking of her. By turning the Betazoids against each other momentarily as a distraction, Freeman was able to activate Red Alert and call the crew to action, just as their emotional states were returning to normal. This time, Cerritos security subdued the three Betazoids on the bridge, allowing Freeman herself to stop the ship from entering the Neutral Zone at the last moment. Later, with everyone's emotions normal and understandings reached, Freeman apologized for herself mistaking one form of telepathic projection for another. As the three ladies departed the ship, they shared with Freeman all the intelligence they had on the mysterious ship, to apologize for their behavior. ()
On Stardate 58901.5, Freeman and the Cerritos were visiting Ferenginar to begin the application process for the Ferengi to join the Federation. The Cerritos had joined the USS Toronto with Admiral Vassery to conduct the quick negotiations, and he was confident that it would be quick, and that Freeman would only have to be there as a notary to the proceeding. Grand Nagus Rom and his wife, First Clerk Leeta boarded the Toronto to meet with Vassery and Freeman. During the course of the negotiations, Freeman soon realized that Vassery did not have the experience or knowledge to deal with the Ferengi, and despite her efforts to advise him, he refused her counsel, still confident that he could handle it himself. It also became obvious that the Ferengi were adding ridiculous and extravagant terms and bonuses to the application and that Vassery was oblivious the fact that he was being played. When Rom and Leeta decided to take the negotiations back to the palace to finalize them, Freeman took over the negotiation and offered Rom a revised contract with extra signing bonuses and incentives that appeared to give the advantage to the Ferengi. When Vassery protested and the Ferengi salivated over the prospect of the Federation being in debt to them, Freeman revealed one proviso: before they get any of the bonuses, the Ferengi would have to recruit another planet to join the Federation. At first the Ferengi thought it would be simple because they have many worlds in debt to them, but then were aghast when Freeman pointed out the fine print that the planet was a specific one: the Klingon homeworld, Qo'noS. Leeta said it was impossible, but Freeman recalled one of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, #8, that stated 'small print would lead to large risk'. It was a move that swung the terms of the contract back into the Federation's favor. Rom was impressed with Freeman's ability to play by Ferengi rules and also by her respect for their culture. Leeta told Vassery that Freeman saved the negotiations for the Federation because in the end they wouldn't have wanted to be signatories to an agreement with 'suckers and rubes'. Vassery apologized to Freeman, saying he should have listened to her all along, and said that he would be telling Starfleet about her negotiating acumen that day. With the Ferengi behavior essentially exposed as a test for the Federation representatives, Rom happily threw out the first contract and signed the new standard agreement to submit their application. Freeman later noted in her log that it was a good start to the Ferengi joining the Federation, with a hint in her voice that she knew she was really the one that got the job done. ()
On Stardate 58934.9, Freeman and the Cerritos were sent to investigate the disappearance of a Bynar ship. The Cerritos was the closest ship, and the attack showed similarities to other recent attacks on non-Federation ships. While the Cerritos investigated, Freeman sent Tendi to Earth to the Daystrom Institute to attend Peanut Hamper's parole hearing, as she had been the exocomp's liason on the Cerritos. She also sent Boimler with Tendi to discover what AGIMUS was up to, as the AI had requested Boimler's presence and claimed that he had knowledge of the recent mysterious attacks. Freeman suspected AGIMUS had ulterior motives but knew Starfleet didn't have many leads on the attacks, and wanted Boimler to hear what AGIMUS had to say. 
Upon arriving at the nebula, the Cerritos was immediately confronted with a Drookmani ship controlled by Badgey. The ship's panicked captain contacted the Cerritos warning them about Badgey, but was killed by Badgey, who began attacking the Cerritos. Freeman ordered evasive maneuvers, but Badgey was able to anticipate and counter every move, owing to his knowledge of Starfleet tactics. Freeman realized it was how he was able to lure them there. She ordered Rutherford to attempt to find a solution, but instead Rutherford and Mariner went to the Drookmani ship to deal with Badgey. The AI tried to bring Rutherford out of hiding on the Drookmani ship by attempting to kill the Cerritos crew with Neurozine gas. Rutherford was able to save Freeman and the crew's lives just in time. Badgey then tried to gain control of the entire Federation and Starfleet, including the Cerritos, but was thwarted by his own newly-discovered omniscience. Meanwhile, Boimler was able to obtain for Freeman more information on the mystery ship's attacks from a re-imprisoned AGIMUS. () 
Freeman and the Cerritos were assigned to find Nicholas Locarno and escort him back to Earth. Starfleet intelligence thought Locarno, now a shuttle pilot for hire, was being targeted by the same mysterious ship that had been targeting non-Starfleet ships. She was also agitated and worried over the apparent recent self-destructive behavior of her daughter, Mariner. She assigned Boimler, Tendi and T'Lyn to a special mission in the Sherbal system to distract Mariner while the Cerritos looked for Locarno. She was concerned that Locarno's rebellious, free-spirited behavior would inspire further destructive behavior in Mariner, and she thanked her friends for their help. When the Cerritos arrived at New Axton, a lawless planet where Locarno was thought to be, Freeman tried to think like the criminal inhabitants to gain their favor but was unable to get permission to directly transport to the planet or find information on his whereabouts in the Pickpockets District of the capital city, despite behaving like a tough roving gang member. She was directed to an information broker at a nearby bar, and proceeded to attack the broker, whom she thought was a puppet. When it was revealed it was in fact a sentient life form, the broker rejected Freeman's request for information. Later, when Rutherford was despondent over the apparent failure of their mission, Freeman said it was in fact a success. She revealed her overall plan to trick the locals into revealing the location of Locarno by secretly concurrently sending Billups to the capital city disguised as a bounty hunter, knowing they would never talk to Starfleet members in uniform. When Freeman and the landing party entered Locarno's hangar, they only found plans of the mysterious spaceship. ()
Freeman was discussing the situation with Admiral Vassery and her husband, Admiral Freeman. She and her husband wanted to go after Mariner who had been captured by Locarno, but Vassery wouldn't allow it for fear of igniting a war. On the bridge, Freeman and the crew were watching a general broadcast by Locarno explaining his plan, during which Mariner disrupted his message. With a show of motherly pride in her daughter's bold actions, Freeman declared her intention to disobey orders and rescue Mariner. When Freeman gave the Cerritos crew the opportunity to back out, the entire crew stood behind her, wanting to help. Tendi then gave Freeman an option to help get through Locarno's shields: her sister D'Erika, Queen of her homeworld, Orion. D'Erika initially would not negotiate with Freeman, and Tendi took over. When they couldn't come to an initial agreement for an Orion warship, Tendi demanded barter by combat, which the Cerritos champion, Migleemo, lost. Defeated, Freeman was about to give the ship's command codes to D'Erika as agreed, but Tendi then offered herself in trade to return to Orion to rule with D'Erika in exchange for the warship. The Orion queen accepted, but the warship she gave Freeman was an old, derelict destroyer named the Retribution, which Billups said they couldn't get operable in time. However, it was still a large ship, a hundred times the size of the Cerritos, so instead, Freeman took T'Lyn's suggestion that Rutherford and Livik use the 'Twin Twain' method to settle on a compromise solution, which Freeman accepted, with some disbelief. They used the Retribution's mass as a battering ram against Locarno's Trynar shields, punching a hole in them so Freeman and the crew could breach them in her Captain's Yacht. As Locarno's plan fell apart, Mariner activated the Genesis Device she took from him and was rescued just in time by Freeman. Despite Mariner's pleas to rescue Locarno, Freeman ordered her yacht out of the area just before it detonated. The explosion killed Locarno and created a new M-class world. Afterwards, Freeman was ready to accept disciplinary action for disobeying orders, but Vassery informed her that since she had managed to open diplomatic relations with the Orions for the first time, no charges would be brought. Vassery said that the new planet would be named 'Locarno' due to the fact that his atoms were included in its makeup, and that it would likely be used to house refugees, spurring Freeman to note that in the end, Locarno still wound up doing some good. Later, Freeman escorted Tendi to the Orion ship that was sent to collect her to complete the deal with D'Erika. ()
==Personality==
She kept belongings such as models of the Cerritos, an ancient sailing ship, and a Gorn, an encased tattered flag of California, a sword, sextant, a baseball, a fossil, various boxed bottles, a replica of a pineapple and a Samurai helmet in her ready room.
She and her husband often experienced frustration in trying to keep their daughter, Beckett Mariner, in line; a struggle that continued when Mariner was transferred under Freeman's command in an agreement between the couple. Freeman brought in Ensign Brad Boimler to keep close watch on Mariner, without revealing their relationship as mother and daughter, in an effort to transfer Mariner off the ship. ()
It was not unlike Freeman to take any mission she had perhaps a little too seriously, often making things seem more important than they actually were or hoping that Starfleet would give her some accommodation for her efforts. When working with Captain Durango in towing the ancient generation ship, she was so confident in her work that she thought that Starfleet should just put her name in a plaque right then. She also saw her job of planting rulot seeds as volatile in nature, much to the amusement of Captain Amina Ramsey. This behavior often resulted in frustration when she believed Starfleet wouldn't take her ship or her crew seriously. ()
According to Boimler's holographic duplicate of Jack Ransom, Captain Freeman had a notable sweet-tooth, and could be manipulated via cookies, but died before warning of her allergy to chocolate. ()
Freeman was a skilled and capable Starfleet captain but did not often conduct herself the same as other well-known Starfleet captains. She was quicker to temper and rash decisions, even when invoking Starfleet's ethical, peaceful and noble values. However, this still ended up serving her well in finding solutions and resolving conflicts. ()
One of Freeman's Starfleet evaluations characterized her as a ‘micromanager’ and that she had to learn to better trust in her crew's abilities to do their jobs and contribute to the success of their missions according to their skills and training. This led her to begin to recognize and appreciate her crew and become more sensitive to their needs, and it in turn inspired more loyalty in her from them. It also made her more protective of her crew in an almost motherly way and made her take more pride in her ship and its mission. () 
Freeman's difficult personality likely earned her the pet name "Carol Bear" from her husband. ()
Freeman's go-to-warp phrase was "Warp Me". ()
She was right-handed. ()
She wore her braids/locks tied back with a command-red hairband that changed color depending on her uniform (it was gold when she wore her white and gold dress uniform). ()
Holds the Starfleet Academy speed record for hydroscooting. ()
She felt insulted whenever her methods were considered out of date by younger officers, as when the Carlsbad's young hotshot Captain Maier called her negotiating tactics 'old school'. This caused Freeman to argue with Maier and nearly derailed a mission. ()
Freeman was not above still feeling relaxed, pampered and a little girly when she got a mani-pedi. ()
In 2381, Freeman came down with Terellian Death Syndrome, which was cured by Ensign Escher. () 
Ensign D'Vana Tendi referred to Freeman's personality traits as 'Proud, Confident, and a little Silly' when trying to differentiate her traits from others in a 'Tuvix Meatball' in order to separate them properly. () 
Freeman sometimes demonstrated an overconfidence in herself and her abilities that would get her into trouble, especially when she should have left certain duties to others instead of trying to handle them herself. () 
She minored in archaic technology at Starfleet Academy. () 
When Cathiw, one of the female Betazoid diplomats, propositioned Freeman by claiming the captain was 'withholding' her sexual desires, Freeman briefly showed flattery, and even a little subtle acknowledgement of Cathiw's intent, but when the Betazoid woman continued to show amorous interest in her, Freeman fell back on the strength of her marriage each time to remain focused on the crisis at hand. ()
She aced her 'Hoodlums and Racketeers' seminar at Starfleet Academy, making her confident she could deal with the lawlessness on New Axton, and she did. ()'
==Personal relationships==
===Friendships===
====Amina Ramsey====
Ramsey temporarily assumed command of the Cerritos when Freeman was away on a mission to plant rulot seeds at the Pisepian Agricultural Colony. Freeman took this menial task very seriously, prompting dismissive amusement from Ramsey. Neither seemed affected by this, as Freeman and Ramsey were seen chatting together at the party in the Cerritos bar after defeating the USS Aledo. ()
====William T. Riker====
Riker was one of Freeman's old friends and was close enough for Riker to consider Freeman his cha'DIch and reminisce with her about the trouble they got into together. Upon reuniting at Douglas Station, Freeman was slightly annoyed when they met again. She disputed his claim that they got into 'so much trouble', implying that it was more likely that he was the one that got into trouble more than her. Her annoyance with him may also have been due to the fact that he was the main supplier of contraband for Mariner, her daughter. Riker also reminded her that he was Mariner's mentor. ()
===Family===
====Beckett Mariner====
Freeman served with her daughter, Ensign Beckett Mariner, aboard the Cerritos. Their relationship was strained due to Beckett's conduct in Starfleet and her mother's overprotectiveness of her. Freeman had been hard on her daughter since the latter was at least 8 years old. It resulted in Mariner being rebellious against Starfleet and her mother, which sometimes made serving together difficult. Even so, there were times when despite their differences they worked very well together against mutual threats when the situation demanded it, and those events also showed that mother and daughter were far more alike than they were different. As time went on, both mother and daughter began to learn to respect and appreciate each other more. () 
Despite Freeman being exasperated by her daughter stealing the Cerritos in a misguided and emotional attempt to find evidence that would exonerate her and rescue her from the trial, she still loved her daughter for thinking of her. ()
While Freeman had a love of jazz, her daughter Mariner did not. ()
Freeman mistakenly assumed that Beckett was to blame for Victoria Nuzé's negative reporting and transferred her daughter to Starbase 80 out of anger. After realizing what had happened, she unsuccessfully attempted to contact Beckett at Starbase 80 and learned that she had left the base and quit Starfleet. Later, mother and daughter reconciled in person during the celebration aboard the Cerritos and Beckett accepted her mother's apology for not trusting her in stride, stating that she had eroded her mother's trust in her for years and was herself at fault for Freeman's reaction. She gladly accepted Freeman's offer to be reinstated onboard the Cerritos and Freeman granted her daughter's request to be mentored and trained by Ransom upon her return, much to his dismay. ()
====Alonzo Freeman====
Admiral Alonzo Freeman was a four-star admiral who was also Carol Freeman's husband. He often called to check on his wife's missions, sometimes to her visible annoyance or surprise. Part of his job appeared to be making sure his wife stayed on track towards her goal of advancing her career. She called him 'Zo for short. He occasionally called her 'Carol Bear'. ()
Carol finally admitted to her husband that they had covered for and excused too much of their daughter Beckett's behavior during her career. However, Carol felt that she couldn't be the one to decide her daughter's fate because she didn't take her parents seriously as authority figures after so many years of them covering for her. Alonzo agreed and affirmed that the Cerritos was Beckett's last chance. It caused Carol to assign her first officer, Jack Ransom, to oversee Beckett's time on the Cerritos and gave him the power to decide if she would remain in Starfleet. ()
==Memorable quotes==
"You're a great captain; let them be a great crew!"
"You're right. I am a great captain!"
: - Boimler and Freeman, on repealing the Temporal Edict ()
"If you ever disrespect me like that again, I'll skip the court martial and blow you out the airlock!"
"Cool. Well, live long and prosper."
"Don't you give me that sarcastic Vulcan salute! BECKETT!"
: - Freeman and Mariner, after the latter embarassed her in front of Captain ()
"I just hate seeing a perfectly good society get destroyed by a Gamester of Triskelion because Starfleet has a policy of some interference!"
: - Freeman, after discovering Beta III had returned to worshipping ()
"Our ship might not be the biggest, and we might do the missions nobody else wants, but we are still Starfleet. My crew deals with just as much as Picard's or any other. We might be , but we are the best at what we do. I'm Captain Carol Freeman, this is my crew, and you are letting us into that party!"
: - Freeman to a bouncer who wouldn't let her and her senior officers into the Command Conference ()
"Humanity has a complicated relationship with organized religion."
:-Freeman to T'Ana during Ransom's transformation into a Gary Mitchell-like super being () 
"Ugh. I don't know why I keep giving alien street food a chance. It's always such a gamble."
:-Freeman experiencing visible discomfort after retrieving the AGIMUS computer and sampling the planet's local cuisine ()
"Mm, Time to take this puppy off its leash! Warp Me!"
:-A simulated Freeman ordering the newly undocked Cerritos to warp speed in Mariner's holomovie in () 
"There are two people on your whole planet?!"
"Well, yes, we're, uh, we're rich."
"......Implode the moon."
:-Freeman and an alien inhabitant of Mixtus II during negotiations over the controlled demolition of their moon in ()
"Attention all hands, report to your commanding officers. The Archimedes needs our help, so we have to remove our hull one panel at a time. I'm calling on every officer, no matter what your usual duties are. We have to work together. It'll be close, people; our lives will be on the line. But we are Starfleet, and we never back down from a challenge. Now, get to work. Cerritos strong! Oh, and the ballroom dancing competition will have to be postponed."
: - Freeman, to the crew of the Cerritos ()
"Doctor T'Ana has raised some concerns, Lieutenant Commander. Her medical opinion is that you are a pile of stress."
:-Freeman, to Billups ()
"Oh, engineers, all of them, ALL of them, they're all goddamned Geordi La Forges!"
:-Freeman, while being taken away by the staff of the spa ship Dove ()
"And that's why being a captain is a lot like vocal jazz. It's all about the notes you don't scat."
:-Freeman, performing for some of the crew in the bar while trying to get Mariner to request a transfer to another ship ()
"And now that I am president of all Starfleet, allow me to present my inaugural scatting."
:-Freeman, playing out a fantasy and a hobby in a holodeck program ()
"People, you are Starfleet officers. Pull it together and stop embarrassing me in front of the Betazoids. I want them to think we're cool."
:-Freeman, trying unsuccessfully to bring her crew under control during an out-of-control party in the ship's bar during a visit from three Betazoid diplomats (
"The Betazoids? No Way! They're so nice! Dolorex? She said I'm hot."
:-Freeman, basking in the glow of a compliment from one of the three Betazoid diplomats ()
"We threw a battleship at it!"
:-Freeman, explaining to Mariner how they breached Locarno's Trynar shield, to rescue her ()
"Why does this work?"
:-Freeman, incredulous at the success of the 'Twin Twaining' method of negotiating a compromise ()
"Now tell me who your master is, you fake puppet piece of s**t!"
:-Freeman, irate at a reticent information broker disguised as an alien mannequin, who turned out to be real ()
"Cerritos crew, this is the captain. I am about to disobey a direct order and stage a rescue of Lieutenant Junior Grade Mariner. Now, I can't ask any of you to join me. If we survive, the court-martial is guaranteed, but I will be damned if I wait for politicians to decide her fate."
:-Freeman, after a captive Mariner told everyone the truth about Locarno's plan ()
==Appendices==
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===Background information===
Freeman was voiced by Dawnn Lewis.
In developing Freeman, Mike McMahan considered her a typical Star Trek captain but needed a reason why the repeated butting of heads between the captain and Mariner wouldn't result in Mariner being "drummed out of Starfleet". This led him to base some of their argumentative relationship on his own sister and mother's arguments. 
=== External link ===
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Category:Humans
Category:Starfleet captains
Category:Starfleet command personnel
Category:USS Cerritos personnel