Character Information

Gender		Female
Species		Human
Age		25

Physical Appearance

Height		5'7"
Weight		135lbs
Hair Color		Brown/Blond
Eye Color		Dark Brown
Physical Description		Private First Class Ariel Kade moves with care rather than confidence. Her posture is straight but not stiff, and her movements are precise without being sharp. She gives the impression of someone who thinks before she acts, not because she doubts herself, but because she wants to get it right. She stands at an average height, with a lean build shaped more by training and repetition than natural strength. Her skin has a warm olive tone, and her features are sharply defined. High cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and wide-set dark brown eyes that often seem to be watching for something she hasn’t been told yet. Her expression is usually focused, but not closed off. There is often a quiet tension in her face, like she is bracing for what might be asked next. Her hair is dark brown with faded ends, usually tied back quickly into a braid or knot. If it falls out of place, she tucks it back without much thought. Her uniform is always neat. Not stiff, just careful. A small scar above her right eyebrow is the only visible mark, easy to miss unless you are close. She speaks softly, with a measured voice that people sometimes lean in to hear. There is no bravado in how she carries herself, just a quiet sort of readiness. And the occasional pause, like she is waiting to be sure it is her turn to speak.

Family

Children		Niko Kade, age 8 (lives with her parents on Velan Ridge Station)
Father		Marcus Kade
Mother		Pella Kade

Personality & Traits

General Overview		Ariel Kade is a capable and focused combat field medic, with sharp instincts and a strong sense of purpose. She does not freeze under pressure. She might hesitate, or overthink, or scramble to adjust when the situation shifts, but she always moves. She takes her role seriously, maybe more seriously than people realise, and pushes herself to stay steady when others are hurt. She is not calm because she is detached. She is calm because she is scared of what happens if she is not. She speaks clearly in the field, acts quickly, and always double-checks her kit. She can be sharp, especially if someone is being careless, but she is not cruel. Her first instinct is to protect, not punish. Most people trust her within minutes, even if they do not know why. Off duty, she is warm, social, and often the one who gets pulled into group jokes. She is not loud, but she enjoys being around people. She laughs easily. She will wear a ridiculous hat or help decorate the squad area just because someone else thought it was a good idea. If someone looks off, she notices. She might not always say the right thing, but she will show up with tea, or food, or just sit nearby until the quiet feels easier to carry. She believes in people, sometimes too much. She gets involved. She takes things personally. She struggles with orders that feel cold or distant. If she is told to leave someone behind, she will follow the command, but it will stay with her. She remembers names. Faces. Mistakes. She replays conversations when she is alone. Sometimes she writes things down and deletes them again. She misses her son more than she says. Niko is eight now, living with her mother back on Velan Ridge Station. They talk when they can, but it is never enough. She keeps a photo of him tucked into her kit and tries not to think about how much he is growing up without her. She wants to bring him aboard one day. She just does not know if that is realistic or wishful. Ariel is still figuring out who she is becoming. She is good at what she does, but that does not always mean she feels like she is. She second-guesses. She gets frustrated with herself. She pushes harder than she needs to, and sometimes forgets she is allowed to rest. But she keeps going. She shows up. She checks in. She keeps choosing to care, not because it is easy, but because it is the only way she knows how to live in uniform and still feel like herself.
Strengths & Weaknesses		Strengths • Focused and capable under pressure • Strong practical skill in field medicine and triage response • Approachable and socially warm, helps build team morale • Emotionally intuitive, especially when others are struggling • Maintains a steady presence in emergencies, even when afraid • Deeply committed to Federation ideals, especially protection of civilians Weaknesses • Overthinks actions and conversations, especially after missions • Forms emotional attachments quickly, which can affect judgement • Takes failures personally, even when they are beyond her control • Struggles with morally grey orders or decisions that require emotional detachment • Pushes herself too hard and forgets to rest or ask for help • Misses her son deeply, which sometimes leaves her emotionally stretched
Ambitions		To keep helping people, and one day find a way to have her son with her instead of waiting for messages.
Hobbies & Interests		Charcoal sketching, bedtime story recording for her son, improvised dancing, zero-gravity motion drills

Personal History		Ariel Kade was born and raised on Velan Ridge Station, a remote Federation outpost near the edge of the Deneb sector. It was a place built more on cooperation than hierarchy, where survival depended less on rules and more on who was willing to step forward. Her father was one of those people, a civilian responder who handled emergencies with calm hands and a steady voice. Ariel grew up trailing behind him, learning how to bandage wounds, reset sprains, and speak gently even when things looked bad. Life on the outpost shaped her early. Help often came too late unless someone nearby was ready to act. She didn’t think of it as training, but it gave her a kind of reflexive focus and the sense that when something happened, you didn’t freeze, you moved. At sixteen, Ariel became pregnant. The father was a close friend, and it had been more experimentation than anything serious. The situation was unexpected but not unkind. They parted on respectful terms, especially since their families were close. He now serves aboard a starship and checks in from time to time. Ariel gave birth to her son, Niko, shortly after turning seventeen. She chose to keep him, not from impulse, but from conviction. Her mother, a retired schoolteacher, stepped in without hesitation to help raise him while Ariel finished school and training. They remain close, and Ariel speaks to them both when she can, even if the hours are short and the signal unreliable. After completing her formal education, Ariel applied to Starfleet Academy. She passed the physical and practical assessments easily but struggled with the academic theory requirements. Her application was rejected. It hurt more than she admitted at the time, but it wasn’t a shock. She didn’t apply again. Instead, she enlisted in the Federation Ground Forces as a combat medic. Fieldwork made more sense than policy. She wanted to be useful, not perfect. Training was intense. She wasn’t the fastest or the strongest, but she was determined, and that counted. Her instructors described her as composed, adaptable, and sharp under pressure. She did well in field medicine, triage drills, and casualty stabilisation, though she sometimes overthought procedures she already knew. She didn’t push for command, but people tended to listen when she gave instructions. Her scores placed her in the top range of her cohort, and she graduated with recommendations for front-line medical readiness. Between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four, Ariel served with the 83rd Field Support Battalion, a relief-focused unit working evacuations, triage support, and post-contact stabilisation across multiple sectors. The work was demanding, often improvised, and not the kind that earned formal commendations. But it mattered. She learned to work with half-supplied kits and changing atmospheres, to keep civilians calm during evacuations, to talk while applying pressure and ignore panic until later. She made mistakes. She got flustered. She got better. She saw her first death. Treated her first child. Lost someone she had checked only an hour earlier. She learned what it felt like when the adrenaline wore off and the quiet came in. In early 2388, she was posted to the USS Guinevere as a combat field medic. It was her first long-term shipboard assignment and a shift from planetary operations into close-quarters detachment life. The change was harder than she expected. Squad routines were different. People leaned on each other in ways she wasn’t used to. Some were younger. Some had never seen blood. She tried to help where she could. Sometimes she got it right. Sometimes she said too much or not enough. Sometimes she patched someone up, then overthought every word she said after. She wasn’t the calmest in the room, but she was usually the one with the right bandage, or the water, or the quiet joke when someone needed grounding. She was still figuring out how to be steady without pretending to have it all together. She kept Niko’s drawings by her bunk when they arrived and carried a 2D photograph of him tucked into her kit. It reminded her why she did what she did. Not always in a poetic way. Just in the "I can’t afford to screw this up" kind of way.
Service Record		2382–2383 Federation Ground Forces Basic & Medical Training: Combat Medic Track - Field Triage, Casualty Stabilisation, Ground Operations Support 2383–2388 83rd Field Support Battalion, Private → Private First Class, Combat Medic 2388–Present USS Guinevere, Federation Ground Forces Detachment, Combat Field Medic, Alpha Squad