Distinguishing Physical Characteristics

Light burn marks on her back from when she was an infant. She’s also Empathic and Telepathic and has incredible agility, strength, hearing and sight. Her abilities are a lot like a cat’s.

Personality

Karissa is a very easy going person. Gets along with just about everyone. She enjoys helping people, but she does have an undercurrent of aggression when it’s needed. She’s fiercely loyal to her friends and family, especially her children. Whenever she gets to a point where her emotions feel like they’re going to overwhelm her, she heads to the holodeck and runs one of her many programs, depending on the emotion and the need. For the most part she is a smart, capable and confident woman, yet with vulnerability and warmth. She’s also very creative. She also loves children in general, not just her own, and animals. She has a particular affinity for felines.

Hobbies and Interests

Rock climbing, holodeck programs, reading, writing, listening to music, martial arts, meditation.

Background

Karissa was rescued from a fire on the planet of Kritarus. However, there was no record of her birth, and the house that she was rescued from belonged to a research scientist who was supposedly killed in the fire. His name was Dr. Helorian Drakara. He had no wife and usually spent most of his time in his lab, or so the reports said. There was no cause identified for the fire. Only that it could have been accidental, starting in the lab. When Karissa was rescued and treated for smoke inhalation and minor burns, they ran a DNA scan on her only to find it a very confusing mess. She had Terran, feline and unknown DNA. However, since she was an infant and was around six months old, she was placed in the care, and eventually adopted by a family on Kritarus. The family was Dr. Ryan Bentara and his wife Amalie (both half Betazoid and Terran). They had not been able to conceive children on their own. She was raised a very happy and well adjusted child, though she did have constant nightmares, mostly involving fire, and scars from where she was burned on her back.

When she was still very young it was discovered that she was empathic, followed by telepathic. She has incredible athletic abilities and can jump very far and she always seems to land on her feet. She excelled in school, and to meet her potential the teachers had to give her more difficult work. When she was fifteen, she graduated required schooling and decided Starfleet was where she wanted to be. Shortly there after, she entered the academy and excelled in a wide range of areas. But she was mostly drawn to psychology and decided that being a ship's counselor was for her.

Once she completed her training, she took a residency at Starfleet Medical on Earth and stayed on for a couple years. However, after that she became restless, like something in her wanted her to leave Earth and search out the unknown, as if she could discover where she was from. It had always been her dream to be on a starship.

Her adopted parents eventually did settle on Earth to be with their daughter, and to everyone's surprise, they conceived a child of their own. Karissa's little brother was born as she was leaving on her first starship, but she fell in love with him and to this day stays in touch when she can.

She was with the USS Cole until it was finally decommissioned in a large ceremony on Earth to celebrate the history of all the ships barring the name USS Cole and to those who lived and lost their lives on those ships. Because of the USS Cole being decommissioned Karissa was transferred to the Ronin.

She met Captain Ryan Evans on Starbase 11 where his first reception of her was not a welcome one, but she was able to worm her way into his acceptance by simply being honestly and friendly and not trying to be a counselor. However, from their first meeting, there was a spark between them.

Later as the Ronin was destroyed and Captain Evans returned from Earth with a new ship the Ronin-A, they got much closer. One night of bar hopping with Captain Ryan Evans, Dr. John Hancock, Lt. Ming Wang and Lt. Sean O’Neal everything changed. Like a cat, Karissa went into heat. The pheromones her body sent off made her irresistible to the men she was with, with the exception of Lt. O’Neal who passed out from the drinking, and her own desires were affected.

The end result was that Ryan and Karissa found a deeper connection than they had ever expected. First they tried to deny their feelings, but it didn’t work. Eventually, they realized that nothing mattered without love. Things were made more complicated by her pregnancy. By accident, she found she was pregnant with triplets. Each man having fathered one of her children, but tragically, as she learned of the pregnancies, she miscarried one. The two remaining were Ryan’s and William’s. It was at this time that she also learned the truth about what she was . . . That she had been engineered in a lab.

That revelation was a difficult one for her to swallow, though it explained a lot. But because of the genetic engineering, she almost lost her life and those of her babies. However, Will and Ming together were able to come up with a solution to save them all. In the end, on October 28, 2384 Luc Ryan and Maya Amber-Marie were born healthy to the delight of their parents.

However, the happily ever after for her and Ryan was cut short by a Kelvan attack. In the course of trying to secure an Iconian Gateway to stop the incursion, Ryan was stabbed and pushed through the gate by a Naussican pirate. In retaliation, Karissa killed the pirate, having been too late to save Ryan.

She was completely devastated by the loss. No one could console her. In time, as the Ronin-A was attached to Starbase 901, she tried to cope with the loss better for the sake of her children, but it was a struggle each day. Then, when a virus was released on the station that had the affect of making people fall in love with each other, she and Will ended up together once again . . . Even after the virus was neutralized, she finally realized that she needed to start living again . . . and she wanted to start that process with Will. He was the father of her daughter anyway, and their connection went back to the first night they had met . . . That fateful night that brought about some of Karissa’s happiest and saddest moments.

With Starbase 901’s move, and much discussion between her, Will and Shara, she decided it was in the best interests of all to apply for a transfer down to Serenity, knowing it would be a new start for her and Will and an open environment for her children.

Player Name

Krystina Stressman