Nikolas Crook

Nikolas Crook (b. 8 September 2195) is a human born on the Omega Leonis colony and a vice admiral in the United Federation of Planets Starfleet. As of December 2255, VADM Crook is assigned to the 7th Fleet under ADM Ariella McKenzie.

## Early Life

Nikolas Leonidas Crook was born on 8 September 2195 on the Omega Leonis colony to Muriel and Jakob Crook. The second child of four, Nikolas’ older sister Penelope was born three years earlier, while his brothers, Paul and Konstantin, were born four and six years later respectively. The Omega Leonis systems lies at the very edge of Federation space, along the border with
the Klingon Empire. Nikolas’s parents were merchants and, until relations
between the two powers deteriorated in the early 2220s, ran a very successful
import/export business between the Klingons and the Federation. Thus, Nikolas was exposed to Klingons at an early age, and developed an interest in their language and culture that would endure throughout his lifetime.

## Starfleet Academy and Early Career

Having shown an aptitude for history, languages, and
cultural studies, Nikolas applied to Starfleet Academy and was accepted,
graduating with an ensign’s commission in 2217. Having impressed his teachers
with an innate grasp of tactics and strategy, as well as outstanding performance
in personal combat training, Crook entered Starfleet Security Division upon
commissioning, and was assigned to undergo further training, completing both Advanced
Law Enforcement Training and Starservice Security Training programs, and
earning promotion to lieutenant, junior grade in 2218.

Assigned to the security department aboard the *Einstein-*class
survey vesselUSS *Woquini*, LTJG Crook was able to participate in
multiple landing parties on a variety of planetary types, and had the privilege
of being a member of the first contact mission to Zaran (Mu Capricorni), home
of the Zaranites. In 2221, Crook was promoted to full lieutenant, and
transferred to the USS *Hokkaido*, a *Baton*
Rouge*-class cruiser, as chief of security. A year later, with relations between*
the Federation and the Klingon Empire increasingly strained, the *Hokkaido*
was assigned patrol duties along the border in the Gariman Sector to counter
the increasing number of border violations by Klingon raiding forces. During
this tour, Crook became frustrated with the existing ad hoc nature of tactical
security deployments, and developed and implemented organizational protocols
and training for rapid deployment of tactical security forces to space
installations and planetary surfaces. His new tactical doctrines proved to be
highly effective, and Crook was soon in high demand as a training officer for
other starship-based security forces tasked with patrolling and defending
vulnerable frontier colonies.

## Early Work with Starfleet Defense Doctrines

Promoted to lieutenant commander in 2224, Crook published
“Secure Ground: Implementing Effective Rapid Response Tactical Operations for
Starship Security Personnel,” in *The Journal of Advanced Security Studies*.
The essay garnered him wide recognition in Starfleet Security, and an appointment
to Tactical Operations School (SOS) on Andoria. During this assignment, Crook
met and impressed General Ivreva zh’Avokres of the 1st Mobile Guard
Division, “Andoria’s Own,” the Starfleet legacy unit originally formed from the
infantry forces of the Imperial Guard. Upon completing SOS in 2225, General
zh’Avokres requested he be assigned to her staff as fleet liaison officer.
Despite the Andorians still placing a high emphasis on personal combat and
infantry operations, Crook quickly realized that the 1MGD’s
tactical doctrine was decades behind the curve, and this was the closest thing
Starfleet had to a “crack” unit. Relegated to training exercises, ceremonial
occasions, and occasional crowd control, the 1MGD was less a fighting force
than a decorative relic, despite maintaining the latest equipment.

Crook began to research Starfleet’s combined forces
capabilities. In terms of starships, the *Einstein* and *Baton Rouge* classes
were ageing, and often outclassed by their Klingon opposite numbers, and even
some of the better Orion cruisers. While the *Anton-*class cruisers were scheduled
to enter service in significant numbers by the early-2230s, and would help
address this issue, currently Starfleet’s ships were outdated, outclassed, and
out gunned by their most likely opponent. The situation with infantry forces
was even worse. Fleet security detachments were small, with the security
departments on most starships barely adequate to fend off determined boarders.
While these detachments also served as the fleet’s infantry, Crook’s own
experience had already demonstrated the need for a reassessment of their
tactical operations doctrine. All told, Starfleet has some 120,000 beings
currently serving in non-starship security positions. While organized into four
corps of three divisions each, nine of those divisions were minimally armed law
enforcement and installation security units, dispersed in small units
throughout the Federation and its colonies. Only the three legacy divisions,
the 1st – 3rd Mobile Guard Divisions, were considered
line divisions, and even these were dispersed through the systems controlled by
Andoria, Earth, and Tellar before the Federation. They too were primarily law
enforcement forces, and their members did not rotate through fleet security
service. Crook determined that no matter where the Federation might be
threatened, quickly bringing a significant and effective infantry force to bear
against an enemy would be impossible with the current deployments and level of training.

Crook published several other papers, outlining the need for
an extensive reevaluation of Starfleet’s defense posture, particularly in terms
of infantry forces. “A starship can destroy a city, or a planet, but only
infantry can hold one,” he wrote. Unfortunately, his arguments were not
popular, and he was accused from both within and without the service of being a
militarist. A few flag officers at Starfleet Command were aware of the
Federation’s ill-preparedness to fight a major conflict, however and insured
that Crook’s career didn’t suffer from these allegations. Tacitly, Crook was
told to keep working – quietly. Helping to soften this response to Crook’s
ideas was Isoli sh’Telrith, a xenoanthropologist come home to Andoria after completing
postgraduate studies on Vulcan. The two were married in 2227.

## Starfleet Embassy Security Group and the Battle of Ajilon

In 2228, Crook left Andoria to take up a new post with the Starfleet
Embassy Security Group (SESG). Over the next five years, Crook’s knowledge of
the Klingon language and culture led to a series of embassy and diplomatic
mission postings along the border regions and at various summits and
negotiations between the two powers. Beyond the usual security operations,
Crook also worked closely with Starfleet Intelligence during this time. Pleasantly,
SESG postings usually offered the opportunity to have Isoli with him, and the
two made the most of it. Their daughter, Arethe, was born in 2229, followed by
a son, Jakob, in 2231. Toward the end of his tour with SESG, Crook was head of
security for the Federation embassy on Davlos III, an independent world on the
border that relied heavily on trade with the Empire. In an effort to push the
Federation out of the system, Klingon agents stirred up anti-Federation
sentiment, leading to a massive outbreak of civil unrest during which the
embassy found itself under siege and repeated attempts at assault for nearly a
month. His tour of duty with SESG, itself a part of Starfleets supposed 12
division force, and experiences with various representatives (official and
otherwise) of the Klingon Empire convinced Crook that there was a high
probability of open conflict between the Federation and the Klingons within the
next 50 standard years, and that Starfleet was not ready to meet that
eventually – especially on the ground.

Meanwhile, the cold war between the two powers had fallen
into a regular roundabout of minor border skirmishes, deniable raids by Klingon
“renegades,” and competition for influence over strategically and/or
economically valuable independent systems and polities. This state of affairs had
somewhat vindicated Crook’s advocacy for improved strategic, operational, and
tactical capabilities in Starfleet Security, however, and in 2233, Crook was
promoted to commander and assigned to the USS *Concord*, one of the new *Anton*-class
cruisers, as chief of security. He immediately began incorporating and refining
his tactical theories in training his security teams, preparation that would
pay off handsomely when the *Concord* responded to a Klingon raid on the
Ajilon Prime colony. Arriving after the raiders had deployed landing parties,
Crook led his security teams to confront the Klingons on the ground. This
particular raid was perpetrated by the Imperial Klingon Forces in the guise of
“renegades” to keep their combat reflexes sharp and relieve the boredom of
patrolling. Thus, Crook and his people found themselves confronting experienced
Klingon warriors, but nevertheless managed to drive the Klingons out of the
colony’s small (and only) city through a combination of superior tactics and personal
bravery. Crook’s force captured five Klingons and before the rest were beamed
away (the *Concord* being a match for the Klingon raider), the Klingon commander,
Koth of House Kor, demanded to know his opposite number’s name so that the
story of the battle could be properly told. Crook told him. True to his word,
Koth composed a traditional story-song about the “Battle of Ajilon” and his
worthy opponent, “the Warrior Crook.” Koth may have been a better poet than
soldier, but the story-song spread widely, and Crook became known as one of the
few humans worthy of the warrior title.

## Director of Starfleet Tactical Operations and the Battle of Donatu V

As the cold war with the Klingons continued to throw up
brushfires, the Federation and Starfleet’s attitudes towards increasing their
defensive capabilities begun to change. The *Hermes*- and *Saladin*-classes
were beginning to enter service,and the first *Constitution*-class
cruisers were off the design padd and taking shape in the yard docks over Earth
and Mars further, Starfleet had also launched the *Ptolemy*-class
tugs/transports as dedicated supply and transport vessels. Faster than civilian
merchant ships, and dedicated to Starfleet service, the *Ptolemys* gave
the fleet a logistical backbone it had been sorely lacking. As for Crook, after
his tour aboard the *Concord* ended in 2238, he was promoted to captain, an
unusual achievement for a security officer, and an indicator that he was being fast-tracked
for flag rank. He was ordered to return to Earth and Starfleet’s Command and
Staff College in San Francisco. After completing the 10-month course, Crook was
assigned to Starfleet Operations as head of the Tactical Operations subdivision
where he commanded a team of seasoned security and intelligence officers whose
job was to analyze intelligence and after action reports in order to try and
predict the most effective way to deploy Starfleet Security resources to
defensively counter or preempt hostile actors. In this position, Crook and his
team were able to increase the size of security detachments aboard most starships
and all existing starbases, and to incorporate rapid response tactical force
training fleetwide. Attempts to address the operational issues with the guard
and garrison divisions proved to be more difficult, but Crook was able to
implement a program of professional education that began cycling officers from
the legacy and static guard divisions through current Starfleet Security
training courses, giving the officers at least a working knowledge of current
operational and tactical thinking.

Tactical Operations was soon able to prove its worth. In
late 2244, Crook’s team had determined that the Donatu Sector as a likely
target for Klingon raids in strength, and had convinced Fleet Ops to send
additional ships to the region, including two *Anton*-class cruisers with
their heavier armament and larger security detachments. In 2345 a Klingon
raiding force of four ships descended on the inhabited world of Donatu V. The
planet’s distress call was quickly answered by a Starfleet task group,
including the two *Anton*-class ships. Not only did TacOps’ analysis
result in having sufficient ships on hand to counter the incursion, but the new
tactical response doctrine resulted in Klingon landing parties finding
themselves confronted with prepared and effective opposition on the ground. The
resulting Battle of Donatu V was both brief and inconclusive, with neither side
suffering serious casualties or damage, but without the work of Crook’s
Tactical Operations sub-department, the Klingons would have caught Starfleet
out and occupied the Donatu system.

## The Admiralty

Shortly after the Battle of Donatu V, Crook was promoted to rear
admiral, jumping a grade, and given command of Starbase 24 in the Ramatis
Sector. SB 24 was one of the main Federation outposts along the Klingon border,
serving as Starfleet’s primary base of operations in the area. Crook significantly
strengthened the Starbase, and under his command it became a clearinghouse for
information about the Klingon Empire. The command also gave Crook some fleet
command experience as SB24 had three of the older, *Einstein*-class armed
scouts under its direct command. Furthermore, Crook hosted and participated in
several negotiations with the Klingons during his period of command, but here his
reputation among Klingons proved to be a double-edged sword. While it made
Klingon representatives more willing to deal with him as a recognized warrior,
it also tended to bring out an urge among some Klingons to try and test his
mettle. Crook was able to weather such negotiations with only occasional trips
to sickbay for himself and/or his Klingon guests. Despite these incidents, and
with the exception of his tour on the *Concord*, Crook had been able to
bring his family with him on his postings, and to see and help his children
grow up. Both had moved on to college from Starbase 24, Arethe, grown into a
tall, lean, young woman with skin the color of a robin’s egg, entered Starfleet
Academy in 2247 determined to one day command a starship. Her brother Jakob, on
the other hand, was stocky and appeared human save for his silver-white hair
and antennae. He was accepted into the Daystrom Institute in 2249, where he
planned to study computer engineering.

In 2250, Crook was rotated back to Earth and Starfleet
Headquarters, where he was made commanding officer of Starfleet Security
Training Command, with a mission to evaluate the existing training programs and
schools and to develop new training curriculums with increased emphasis on joint
and ground operations. He also took on the role of visiting instructor at
Starfleet Academy, teaching a course on galactic military history every other
semester. As part of his efforts, Crook was able to bring the legacy divisions
into both fleet rotation and the new security forces training rota. In December
of 2255, Crook was unexpectedly promoted to vice admiral, and attached to Fleet
Admiral McKenzie’s staff with orders to take command of a field force as part
of the notional 7th Fleet.