Nexus

Born at Alpha Centauri Starbase to a Starwalker sire and a baseline foxtaur mother from the Star Corps, Nexus grew up traveling from station to station. Spending most of hir time space-side while hir mother performed her duties as a molecular biologist, Nexus was often left to hir own devices and occupied hirself with learning how things worked. Shi had a natural gift for analysis and improvisation, which shi turned to the systems surrounding and supporting them aboard the ships and stations shi travelled on. By the time hir primary education was completed, shi was able to earn a sponsorship for Star Fleet Academy's engineering track, despite only recently having reached the age of majority.

During the course of hir studies, shi ended up taking the MOS for power systems and spacedrives. Hir final year found hir taking hir Midshipman's cruise on the FSS Potemkin, an older destroyer of the Resolute class, where shi ended up meeting a recently transferred chakat pilot ensign by the name of Swiftwind. The "snow leopard" patterend 'kat was passing by while shi was working on a particularly ornery relay, and immediately spotted the issue. Nexus was put off at first until Swiftwind explained that shi had trained in engineering before transferring to Ops, as flying had been hir true dream, and offered to take hir for a ride the next time they had some off-duty hours lined up. The two hit it off famously after that, and kept in occasional touch once the tour of duty ended.

After a piloting incident that led to Swiftwind being grounded, they were able to reunite on Earth, as Nexus was between assignments hirself. By the luck of the draw, both were selected to serve together on one of the first of the new Moebius class long-range cruisers, the FSS Excalibur. In the ship's first engagement Nexus proved hirself invaluable keeping engineering running and restoring power from a faulty core while under fire, which allowed them to capture a pirate Q-ship that Federation forces had been tracking for months. Shi was made acting Chief Engineer, a position shi proved hirself more than capable of during the ship's time on the frontier. Due to this, Nexus has become something of a subject matter expert on tuning and balancing multiple warp cores together due to the Moebius class's unique warp core layout - at least unique among official Federation ships - and hir procedures have since become part of the standard for maintaining them.

When they returned to Stellar Federation space, Swiftwind left to chase an opportunity in the private sector as a test pilot, but Nexus instead chose to remain on the Excalibur. Though the two followed different career paths, they continued to remain in touch, and get together anytime their schedules allow them to meet up.

While the two taurs do care deeply for one another, their tastes tend to differ in some aspects. Unlike hir Companion, Nexus prefers practical clothes rather than outfits that show off one's body, and usually ends up wearing printed t-shirts when in civilian attire. Shi also picked up a liking for giant robot holonovels during her time at the Academy, a hobby shi has more than once pulled Swiftwind into despite the other's preference for fast flying vehicles instead.

Nexus was originally created for the story I wrote for M'Rel as Swiftwind's Companion. Originally I did not have any supporting characters for Swiftwind when shi was created, as shi was just a fursona back then, but shi has been an independent OC for a long time now, and after some discussion around a Star Trek AU timeline in one of the chakat communities, I felt I should revive Nexus and flesh hir out further.