Captain Katherine Dominique Loomis
¶ Overview
- Full Name: Katherine Dominique Loomis
- Nickname: Kat
- Aliases: Dominique Ansel, Anita Kern, Sophia Brightstar
- Codename: Polyxena
- Species: Human
- Ethnicity: Varies / Unknown
- Nationality: League
- Height: 155cm (5'1")
- Born: 2645
- Place of Birth: Agamemnon Colony
- Gender: Female
- Sex: Female
- Sexual Identity: Bisexual
- Faction: League
To all appearances, Loomis is a jaded former golden child of the League, stuck in a dead-end career and the only way she's leaving the service is in cuffs or feet first. It's well known she's morally grey at the best of times, and she's been the subject of several internal investigations and run ins with the JAG's office. She's always managed to escape without formal charges, but everyone knows she's dirty.
Except, everyone would be wrong. She's actually a Deep cover agent, who specifically requested this assignment. For better or worse, she is bitter, and she probably is only ever going to leave the service feet first, but that's not what it's about for her anymore.
¶ Physical Description
Loomis is a short, lithe woman with brown hair, brown eyes, and an attractive face, when she stops frowning. Her smile once was able to light up rooms, but she never shows that much joy anymore. She's decently attractive, though she's more wirey that more 'traditionally attractive' women. She's not physically strong, and looking at her, that's painfully apparent.
¶ Personality
Loomis is a very reserved person these days. She used to be more outgoing, with an irreverant sense of humor and a sense of loyalty and honor that made her a joy to everyone who knew her. Now, unfortunately, she's a jaded, judgemental woman who rarely lets her sense of humor show. When she does, it's often subtle, or at times that come off as especially unexpected.
Who she used to be is still there; she hasn't changed that much. She's just more withdrawn, more exasperated with everything, and just a bit more bitter at existence.
¶ Special Abilities
¶ Loyalty
While most wouldn't consider loyalty a special ability, but for Loomis, her Duty and the her personal Honor are deeply tied to remaining loyal despite everything that's happened. It's also, sometimes, the only thing that keeps her going.
¶ Starship Captaining
Loomis is a natural-born captain. She has a wonderful analytical mind, and while she won't set any records for tactical analysis, she's a shrewd woman, with the skills and experience to back her up. She likes being in charge of smaller craft, things with fewer resources and even fewer options. The challenge is was drives her; she's at her best when her back is to the wall.
In the same breath, she's also a good leader. She cares about her crew, thinking of them before thinking of herself. (Even the ones who deserve a prison sentence.)
¶ Tradecraft
She's taken to life as a spy very well, showing remarkable abilities for standard spy tradecraft; covert drops, hidden messaginging, thinking on her feet, maintaining aliases, etc. She's a highly trained, highly skilled field operative with McKenzie's respect.
¶ History
¶ Early Years
Loomis grew up on the colony world of Agamemnon, along the Front. Her world was poor (for a League world) and she grew up knowing almost as much about agriculture as she did about starships. Her parents couldn't afford to send her to school, but her grades were excellent and she qualified for a full scholarship to the Naval Academy. There, she graduated in the top 10% of her class, just barely making honors. She was a hard worker, and despite some of her academic strugles, she was regarded as smart, capable, and someone to watch in the future.
¶ Early Military Career
Loomis applied for (and was granted) a position on the LSS Archigos. She was one of the rare people to request a transfer there, as opposed to being hand selected. While she was there, she spedrun learning every bridge station, in six months, she tested higher on those stations than any other bridge officer. This caught the attention of several people, not the least of which was Admiral McKenzie.
Quickly, it because apparent that she was one of McKenzie's 'Golden Children', hand-picked officers whose careers he would foster and mold into something truly impressive. Some people meant it derisively, while others meant it as praise. She didn't care one way or the other. She felt like she'd earned everything she was being given.
¶ Romance
While at the academy, Loomis was bunked with another officer, Rachel Lacey. The two became best friends instantly, and over the years, that friendship blossomed into something more. Rachel ended up leaving the service, after never finding her fit. She was honorably discharged and moved to Agamemnon, to live near and help Loomis' mother and siblings.
Rachel and Loomis were engaged, and in the middle of planning their wedding when Loomis was promoted to Captain, and given the LSS Meride, a Savart Class. Their wedding was put on hold for another six months while Loomis got settled into the Meride.
¶ Agamemnon Annexation
A week before Loomis was scheduled to take leave to get married, news broke that two former League colonies had overthrown their Terran govenor, parasing his dead body through the streets, and demanding to be made League citizens agains. The Terrans had held the worlds since Charlemagne, and both were significiant manufactoring hubs. The Terrans had failed to get either world to produce anything useful since, due to sabbotage.
All shoreleave was canceled, all officers recalled, as there was a fear this would ignite another shooting war. Loomis was scared, as these worlds were along the Front as well, meaning her home colony and these worlds were about to be embroiled in the middle of a war, if one broke out.
After two weeks of intense negotiations, five former League worlds were allowed to rejion the League. At the same time, five other worlds were transfered to Terran hands. Three of the five were former Terran colonies who has also had their fair share of domestic terrorism, but two were current League worlds. One of them was Agamemnon.
¶ Aftermath
At first, it seemed the status of the colony was more a logistic's concern than anything tangible. The [Terrans][] were making big noises, but nothing was changing much. Unfortunately, though, Loomis was forbidden from visiting a Terran occupied world along the Front. She fought and fought and finally after six months got a special dispensation and approval of both the League and Terran governments to return to her home world, and have her wedding.
Unfortunately, when she arrived, she was ushered into the League's Embassy on the world, and forbidden to leave. It took almost a day before they would tell her what happened. Her fiancée had been found raped and beaten to death in an ally. Loomis was forced back onto a shuttle and offworld immediately, without being able to see anyone, or even see her fiancée's body, to identify it.
What followed was her own personal parade of horrors. She was on bereavement leave still when she was informed her mother had committed suicide. The same day, apparently, her brother and sister had joined the Terran Military. Two weeks later, her brother was killed in a training accident, and her sister was found dead in the baracks locker room.
It was clear to everyone that the official stories were covers; the [Terrans][] were making a point to any former League citizen about what would happen if it was discovered you had connection to a serving officer in the League military. The official report of "anti-League violence" made it perfectly clear the message they were trying to send.
Loomis didn't care. She'd had her family ripped away from her, all because some politicians decided Agamemnon was an 'acceptable loss' in the interest of peace.
¶ A Dead-end Career
Loomis became a shell of her former self. She was reinstated (begrudgingly, as she did, technically, pass the fitness interview) as a captain and for a while everyone walked on eggshells around her, trying to figure out what she would do. On the surface, it appeared, she was just sullen, irritable, and jaded.
¶ Loss of the Meride
While on patrol, a distress signal came from a Terran merchant convoy. Standing orders were to provide assistance, regardless of which governments flag the ship was under. Loomis ordered the LSS Meride to assist, against the strong recommendations of her XO and several indications it was a trap.
The LSS Meride arrived at the location to find a group of pirates waiting, with ships much larger than the small LCS. She was borded, her crew was ransomed back to the League and the ship was stripped for parts, chopped, and sold.
The resulting investigation, though heavily calling Loomis's judgement into question, found her blameless for the loss of the ship. However, the rumor was that she'd struck a deal with those pirates weeks prior, and she pocketed some of the money. She denied those rumors, but they stuck.
¶ Shady Dealings
The rumors were, in fact, true, and everyone knew it. She'd betrayed her oath and sold her own ship for profit. No one wanted to work with her, and no one wanted to serve under her. She didn't care, it wasn't about them. She was funneling every spare credit she had to a resistance group on Agamemnon, as well as other former League colonies, and she'd quickly become one of their primary bank rollers.
From here, she continued to have increasingly dubious and shady dealings. She was caught numerous times, but managed to remain just far enough ahead that it couldn't be proven it was her. This included arms deals, supply theft, and other crimes. She had a line; nothing that would injure civilians, and nothing the military couldn't afford to loose. She would not trade intelligence or her access, despite being approached a few times about that. And she would never deal with a Terran.
¶ LNI Recruitment
After three years of watching her sink her career at an alarming pace, McKenzie came to Loomis with concrete, irrefutable evidence of ever crime she'd committed. (It was all fabricated; even McKenzie couldn't find real evedence to pin to her.) The deal was, he now approved her schemes, and he would ensure the resistance groups got the funding, munitions, supplies and training they needed. As long as she continued to play ball with him, he'd keep her dream alive.
After she agreed, Loomis began training as an operative, in secret. She spent two years receiving personal training from McKenzie and his best instructors. She was begining to get a feel for the life, and enjoy it. She did several operations for him in between commands or while on 'leaves', and she found she had a talent for spywork. For the first time in a long time, she felt happy.
¶ Nyana's Death
When McKenzie's wife died, however, the man became obsessed with finding her killer. Loomis had been working with him closely at the time, and seeing him go through the pain and loss she'd been carrying just brought it all back. She struggled to 'keep her head in the game', and his head was completely lost for over a year.
Once they both finally crawled out of their respective holes, McKenzie offered Loomis a chance to hit the Terrans hard. She lead several assaults on secret facilities and killed hundreds of Terran officers. In all that, she learned, revenge was not what she was looking for.
¶ Current Assignment
Loomis is currently Captain of the LSS Gondul, patrolling inside League space. She's acting as part of the personal defense force for a corrupt planetary governor, and is known to work side jobs with a crew even more shady than she is.
Right now, she's being used as a platform for McKenzie to give other operatives instant credit, or access to the more difficult/shady underbelly of the League. It's a waste of her talents, but she does get to be a more normal captain, which she's been enjoying recently. Still, she knows the Old Man will have something more to her speed lined up again soon.
¶ Ships
- LSS Meride - A Savart class
- Ship was lost in action due to pirates
- LSS Kitty Hawk - A Wright class
- Reprimanded for an above average fighter loss rate
- Fighter parts found on the black market later
- Reprimanded for an above average fighter loss rate
- LSS Fleet Street - A Hermes class
- Abandoned with all hands after catastophic engine failure
- All munitions and weapons found stripped, along with engined and reactors
- Abandoned with all hands after catastophic engine failure
- LSS Gondul - A Valkyrie class
¶ Major Associations
¶ Alastair Mckenzie
- Relation: Mentor
In many ways, Loomis looks up to "the Old Man". She sees him as the type of officer she wishes she could be, giving themselves over entirely to duty and loyalty to others. But she knows, in her heart, that she never can truly be that way. Not as effortless as she sees him do it.
When he lost his wife, Loomis considered, for a moment, comforting him in the way only a woman who'd lost her love could comfort a grieving man. She's glad she didn't. Instead, she distanced herself from him to give him space, which he needed. Now, while she would never consider them friends, they have a deep respect for each other, and they know the other one understands that deep, gnawing loss. That has given them a unique bond.