USS Cerritos

The USS Cerritos (NCC-75567) was a Federation starship operated by Starfleet in the 24th century, under the command of Captain Carol Freeman. ()
== Service history ==
=== Early encounters ===
Prior to stardate 57436.2 in 2380, the Cerritos suffered damage from several meteor impacts before barely escaping a black hole. 
Later, the ship's port nacelle struck an ice formation, causing a temporary power failure. 
It also happened upon a battle between twelve Romulan warbirds and six Borg cubes. The Cerritos warped away from the conflict after being hit only once. The Cerritos later returned to this battle, now joined by several Pakled Clumpships and Klingon Birds-of-Prey and once again fled after taking a single hit. On a third visit to this battle, the Cerritos also encountered a Crystalline Entity. On the ship's forth visit, the Whale Probe was also present.
Later still, a large space grub attached itself to the ship's port nacelle. ( opening credits)
File:USS Cerritos escapes a black hole.jpg
File:USS Cerritos hits ice.jpg
File:USS Cerritos witnesses the Romulans fighting the Borg.jpg
File:Space bug.jpg
===2380===
The Cerritos was in service by stardate 57436.2 in 2380, where it was docked at Douglas Station prior to its second contact mission with the Galardonian High Council. 
During this mission, as Commander Jack Ransom was wrapping up his visit with the Galardonian High Council, he was bitten by a flying insect before beaming back to the ship, where he dismissed it. Later, this insect bite caused Ransom to have a seizure at the bar, due to a viral infection. The crew panicked as he suddenly became feral, and attacked other crew members by biting them, spreading the infection.
The situation quickly got out of hand, and the call was made for any uninfected crew members to meet in Transporter Room 8. As the crew gathered, Ensigns Brad Boimler and Beckett Mariner beamed back to the ship and were surprised to see what was going on around them. Boimler was still covered in a pink slime that he picked up on the surface after a run in with a teething spider creature, which Doctor T'Ana determined could be used to synthesize a cure for this virus. After one was produced, it was able to be distributed through the ventilation system, restoring the crew to their normal selves. ()
On stardate 57601.3, the Cerritos was called to Mixtus III to assist the with the controlled implosion of an unstable moon that threatened the population. Besides providing assistance in terms of manpower, Captain Freeman was also instrumental in helping Mixtus inhabitants to reach mutually acceptable solutions that allowed the implosion to go forward. ()
The Cerritos was engaged in a standoff with the Drookmani over the salvage of a wrecked cargo ship. The Drookmani started picking a fight with the Cerritos by throwing debris at the ship with their tractor beam. Captain Freeman refused to engage them in a fight due to diplomatic reasons. The Cerritos stood her ground as the Drookmani continued to throw debris, weakening their shields. Freeman's patience eventually ran out, but it was too late to fight back. Shields and weapons became disabled. Freeman almost gave the order to abandon ship, when they noticed that the Drookmani ship started breaking apart due to a corrupted isolinear core that was ejected from an airlock by Ensigns Mariner and Boimler. ()
Captain Freeman, Commander Ransom, and Lieutenant Shaxs were selected by Admiral Syltrack for a mission to the Pisepian agricultural colony in disputed territory. In their absence, Captain Amina Ramsey of the was put in temporary command of the Cerritos, accompanied by Lieutenants Durga, Ottessa Warren, and Drew Prachett. Under Ramsey's command, the Cerritos journeyed to Khwopa to perform repairs on the inhabitants' water filtration system before rendezvousing with the , which was found adrift in space. It was later discovered that the Rubidoux had been invaded by space entity that was feeding on the ship's energy. Captain Ramsey and her away team were able to save Captain Dayton and her crew before the entity consumed the whole ship. The destruction of the Rubidoux resulted in the birth a space vessel lifeform. ()
When responding to 's distress call originated from the Kalla system, the Cerritoss crew discovered that it was destroyed with the loss of all hands. Soon the Cerritos was attacked and captured by the same unknown vessel that had destroyed the Solvang, with the intent to dismantle the Cerritos for parts. The unknown vessel turned out to be a Pakled ship heavily modified with starship parts from over 30 species. Having its port warp nacelle torn away, the Cerritos was powerless to escape or fight back, but Ensign Brad Boimler discovered that the Pakled Clumpship's system can be easily hacked due to its need to accept systems from different species. With the help of his training hologram Badgey, Ensign Sam Rutherford was able to create three viruses that can disable the Pakled Clumpship. Rutherford uploaded one of the viruses into his implant and Lieutenant Shaxs flew them to the Pakled Clumpship using the shuttlecraft Sequoia. While Rutherford downloading the virus to the Pakled Clumpship's computer, Badgey triggered the auto-destruct of the ship, intending to kill Rutherford, as the latter had snapped Badgey's neck when the holo-program malfunctioned last time. Seeing no other options, Shaxs ripped out Rutherford's implant, placed him on the Sequoia, and pushed the shuttlecraft back into space, saving Rutherford but sacrificing himself as the ship exploded.
Freed from the Pakled Clumpship, the Cerritos restored its main power and attempted to fly away, but was soon captured by another three newly arrived Pakled Clumpships. Just as Ensign Beckett Mariner, taking command of the Cerritos, saw no option left but to abandon ship, the arrived and immediately opened fire on the Pakled Clumpships, forcing their retreat and saving the Cerritos. Later, arriving back at a starbase, the Cerritos underwent extensive repairs as its crew mourned the loss of Shaxs. ()
===2381===
By 2381, the Cerritos had been held in drydock while Captain Freeman had been arrested, accused of conspiring with Klingon extremists in destroying Pakled Planet. Convinced that her mother would be used as a scapegoat to appease people due to her role as a California-class captain, Mariner convinced Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi to sneak on-board to find proof of Freeman's innocence. When personal logs from Boimler proved shaky at best, Mariner decided the best thing to do was to hijack the Cerritos in search of the Klingons who were working with the Pakleds. Her attempt proved futile as her actions led to Security discovering the ship leaving, her friends stopping Mariner, and Freeman herself returning, having been cleared of all charges. ()
Freeman's proposed Project Swing By was eventually approved by Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo, sending the Cerritos to check up on the Ornaran and Brekkians whom the had made first contact with seventeen years earlier. However, Brekka had been invaded by the Breen, resulting in three Breen interceptors attacking and nearly destroying the Cerritos. The Cerritos was saved by the intervention of the automated . The disastrous Breen encounter and a subsequent PR disaster due to Freeman mishandling a reporter that was sent aboard the ship to do an exposé led to Starfleet Command deciding to decommission all of the entire . Furious over recent events, Mariner resigned from Starfleet entirely. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Buenamigo had set the Cerritos up, having been aware of the Breen invasion ahead of time, so as to have an excuse to unveil the Texas-class. ()
In an attempt to stop this, Freeman hastily proposed a second contact race, pitting the Cerritos against the Aledo. Although the Aledo technically won, it did so by violating the Prime Directive, giving Freeman a chance to disqualify it. However, Ensign Sam Rutherford realized that the artificial intelligence used in the Texas-class was dangerously emotionally unstable and prone to patricidal impulses. Buenamigo responded to this by granting the Aledo full autonomy with the intent of having the Cerritos destroyed under the guise of the Cerritos having attacked the Aledo first in response to losing the race. Once given full autonomy, the Aledo turned on Buenamigo, attacking Douglas Station and activating its sister ships the and . The Cerritos led the three away and destroyed the Dallas and Corpus Christi by using the warp core as a mine, but the Aledo survived, inflicting severe damage upon the Cerritos. However, Mariner returned with the Free Spirit and the entire fleet of California-class ships who came to the Cerritoss defense, destroying the Aledo. After the battle, the Cerritos returned to Douglas Station for repairs, the reputation of the California-class restored. ()
Later that year, during the Nova Fleet crisis, the Cerritos command crew left the ship to rescue Mariner in the captain's yacht, leaving Boimler as the acting captain. Under Boimler's command, the Ceritos was able to open a hole in Nova Fleet's Trynar shield for the captain's yacht to get through. ()
==List of second contacts==
* Galardonians (2380)
* s (2380)
* Apergosians (2381)
==Legacy==
Despite only being a California-class starship, the Cerritos gained a considerable reputation amongst other ships, particularly in the 2380s. Having been a staple presence in numerous encounters with the Pakleds, and her other adventurous endeavors under Captain Freeman, the Cerritos gained favorable recognition amongst other ships of Starfleet. Despite this, her command crew was not invited to the Command Conference of Starbase 25 since it was not a capital ship. ()
In 2381, Ensign Kearns of the called the Cerritos the Enterprise of support ships. ()
In 2384, The Doctor, while talking about Dal R'El and his friends, mused that he hadn't seen a crew that dysfunctional since the Cerritos. ()
== Technical data ==
=== Crew quarter assignments ===
* Deck 9: Barnes
* Deck 11:
** A12001: Beckett Mariner
** A12002: Sam Rutherford
** A12003: Brad Boimler
** A12004: D'Vana Tendi
** A12005: 
*** Alien operations ensign 
*** Human ops ensign 
** A12007: 
*** Human sciences ensign 
*** Andorian ops ensign 
*** Human sciences ensign 
*** 
** A12011: Human operations ensign
** A12027: Alien operations ensign
** A13005: Asif
** A13007: Karavitus
** A13009: ** Amadou
** A13011: Moxy
=== Embarked craft ===
The Cerritos carried a complement of Type 6A shuttlecraft, all named after 21st-century national parks in California, in its shuttlebay. ()
== Command crew ==
* Commanding officer
**Carol Freeman (c. 2380–)
**Amina Ramsey (2380)
**Brad Boimler (2381) 
* First officer
**Jack Ransom (c. 2380–)
**Beckett Mariner (2380) 
* Chief engineer
**Andy Billups (c. 2380–)
* Chief medical officer 
** T'Ana (c. 2380–)
* Tactical officer
**Shaxs (–2380, 2381–)
**Kayshon (2381–)
* Flight control officer
** (2380–)
**Brad Boimler (2380–)
**Beckett Mariner (2380-)
**Jennifer Sh'reyan (2381)
**Wendy (2381)
* Operations officer
**Barnes (2380–)
**Beckett Mariner (2380–2381)
**Andy Billups (2380) 
**Sam Rutherford (2381)
=== See also ===
* USS Cerritos personnel
* Unnamed USS Cerritos personnel
== Appendices ==
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=== Background information ===
The Cerritos is named after .
According to Lower Decks series creator Mike McMahan, the yellow markings on the Cerritos indicate that its primary mission is second contact engineering support. 
McMahan also said that the Cerritos registry number (NCC-75567) is based on his mother's telephone number. 
Early concept designs of the Cerritos featured it as being a ship with the name (which became the name of another California-class ship) and two different registry numbers (NCC-1979 and NCC-2056). 
In , Eaglemoss/Hero Collector's Ben Robinson revealed that the company would manufacture the USS Cerritos as a starship miniature and estimated that its Lower Decks ships would begin to launch to retail at the end of 2021 or early 2022. 
=== Apocrypha ===
In Star Trek: Lower Decks - Crew Handbook, it is revealed that the Cerritos was launched in 2371. It was the eighth craft in history to bear the name, including a failed manned rocket ship created by Chronowerx Industries, a supposed Leif Ericson-class that was temporally wiped out by the Whale Probe incident and a that participated in the clean-up following the near-invasion of Earth by the Borg.
===External links===
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Category:Federation starships