Lieutenant Commander Thomas Byrne

Name Thomas Eugene Byrne

Position Chief of Security

Rank Lieutenant Commander

Basic Info
Personality
History
Achievements

Character Information

Gender		Male
Species		Human
Age		47

Physical Appearance

Height		6'1"
Weight		112lbs
Hair Color		Brown
Eye Color		Grey

Family

Father		Dr. James R. Byrne
Mother		Dr. Annika Byrne
Brother(s)		Captain Benjamin J. Byrne (Listed KIA)
Sister(s)		Lieutenant Elizabeth Byrne (DS8) Dr. Natasha Robinson
Other Family		Sister-in-Law: Sarah Byrne Nephew: Jacob Byrne

Personality & Traits

General Overview		Thomas is an amiable personality, freely able to converse with his co-workers and make friends whilst off-duty, but instantly business-focussed when on-duty. Thomas takes his duties very seriously, and though when he entered Starfleet he did so with the aspirations of being an action hero, as he matured he came to value his sense of duty highly, forging a character of indomitable courage and integrity and almost uncompromising idealism.
Ambitions		Thomas' ambitions have changed many times over the years. When he first joined Starfleet, it was to see some action; though that desire quickly dissipated and became replaced with a determined sense of duty during the Dominion War. After serving aboard a few starships, Thomas developed the desire to become a starship captain one day, but ever since he began serving on Starbase 128 and later on at Starfleet Headquarters he has become content in doing his duty and making a difference.
Hobbies & Interests		Thomas regularly participates in hand-to-hand combat training both inside and outside of the holodeck, and has picked up a number of different forms in his spare time, and is proficient enough to teach a number of them. Since joining the investigations team at Headquarters and finding plenty of spare time on his hands, Thomas has also taken up wood work, and has carved a number of small sculptures for himself, his friends and his family.

Personal History

Childhood

Thomas Eugene Byrne was born in 2345 to James and Annika Byrne in Vancouver on Earth, as the younger brother of Benjamin Byrne. His distant ancestors were originally from the Irish O'Byrne family of the 11th century, though a direct lineage is difficult to ascertain.

James and Annika produced two more children in the next five years; Elizabeth and Natasha Byrne. The Byrne children were all very competitive with one-another, as most siblings tend to be, and would often get into arguments with each other over trivial matters, especially during their earlier years. As they grew older however, they began to get along much more easily; helped mostly by the new, larger family house bought just outside of Vancouver in 2361, which had allowed each child to have their own room. Thomas was 16 years old at that point, and had become especially close to his older brother, Benjamin; the thinker in the family, who always seemed to be starting off into the stars as if trying to look into his future.

Though both of his parents were devout archaeologists, and Thomas had been brought up around dig sites for almost his entire life, he had always been more gung-ho than his lifestyle would have suggested he would be; his holoprograms always revolved around action themes; of shooting the bad guy and being the hero, and it was clear to him from very early on in his teenage life that he wanted to join Starfleet - a career path he knew his father would not approve of due to the fact that Thomas' grandfather, Robert Byrne, had been a Starfleet officer and Thomas' father had become very estranged from him due to his extended time away. He had made his desire to enlist known to his older brother Benjamin, who he learned also had aspirations of joining Starfleet, and the two brothers decided to wait a year until Thomas was old enough, and they both entered the Academy together.

To his credit, when his boys told him of their plans, James Byrne showed them enormous support. As he told the two of them when they finally worked up the courage to talk to him, he wasn't fond of Starfleet or what it did to its people and their families, but he had never wanted to stand in the way of what his children wanted to do with their lives. When they left for San Francisco in 2362, he sent them off with a proud smile of his face.

Though Benjamin had wanted to join Starfleet for some time, he didn't really have any idea of the discipline he wanted to study at the Academy, only that he dreamt of one day achieving command of a starship. Thomas, ever the action hero, went straight in for tactical training, eventually joined in part by his older brother, who enrolled for courses with a mixture of tactical skills, diplomatic and galactic history elements, and science. His second year, however, he was forced to focus his studies more directly, and so followed his younger brother on the path to becoming a tactical officer. By the time the two boys had left the Academy in 2366, the eldest of their sisters, Elizabeth, had also joined the Academy, studying to become a science officer.

Starfleet Career

Though the boys entered the Academy together, they weren't posted together, as Benjamin was assigned to the USS Pacific as a junior tactical officer, while Thomas went on to serve aboard Starbase 12. Starbase 12 was a planetary starbase that served as the headquarters for the Mutara sector, and was close enough to Earth that Thomas could travel back quite easily whilst on shore leave, but also close enough to be aware of any and all situations beyond the Romulan Neutral Zone and the Klingon border, especially considering the Romulans' re-emergence on to the galactic stage two years previously. Though he had been able to hear through various channels that his brother had rapidly been able to make a name for himself on the Pacific in gaining a promotion for himself and a position as the chief of security on the ship, Thomas' career progressed more slowly. With more officers around him and less action happening on the starbase, it wasn't until he reached his mandatory evaluation period after two years' service that he was promoted to Lieutenant JG - a rank that by then his brother had already again surpassed in being promoted to full Lieutenant.

Though he held no ill-will towards his older brother, Thomas felt that he needed to get away from the starbase in order to be able to develop more as a Starfleet officer, and rise through the ranks. He put in for a transfer to the Ambassador-class USS Excalibur, which was undergoing a major refit and repair at Starbase 234. His transfer was approved and he was assigned as the assistant chief of security and assistant chief tactical officer aboard the ship, just in time to take part in Captain Jean-Luc Picard's blockade of the Romulan-Klingon border that same year, in order to prevent the Romulans from providing aid to the Duras family in the Klingon Civil War.

Thomas' service continued aboard the Excalibur as it completed it's interrupted refit, and he joined the rest of the crew on the ship's voyages after that, raising in rank to full Lieutenant in 2370. In 2372, after a skirmish with the Klingons near the start of the Klingon-Federation War, the USS Majestic - a Miranda-class starship, lost a number of personnel, and her captain requested that Thomas be assigned as its new Chief of Security; a posting which he accepted, and he transferred to his new command whilst the Majestic was receiving repairs at Deep Space 9.

Dominion War

Thomas' service aboard the Majestic continued into the start of the Dominion War, and the ship saw a lot of action, serving in various mass-fleet engagements as a support ship, along with other ships of its class. Though this gave Thomas plenty of experience at the tactical console and in repelling boarders, it meant that his tactical planning skills were, in his opinion, under-utilised, as the Majestic usually followed tactical orders issued from whichever ship served as the command & control centre for each operation. The ship served in a similar role once again during Operation Return, in which it and the USS Sitak served as escorts for the USS Defiant. The Majestic was severely damaged during the conflict, and the order was given to abandon ship; Thomas' escape pod was just able to get clear of the ship before it was destroyed by a direct torpedo hit to its starboard nacelle.

Thankfully, the Defiant was somehow able to succeed in preventing the arrival of Dominion reinforcements through the wormhole, and the escape pods were recovered by Starfleet shortly, and transported to DS9 for recovery.

Upon being judged fit to return to duty, Thomas joined large numbers of other officers in awaiting word on their next assignments, whilst Starfleet worked to filter through the masses. Eventually, Thomas was informed that he would be joining the Excelsior-Refit-class USS Repulse as its chief tactical officer, joining it as it returned to service in the Ninth Fleet, and spending most of its time in defensive actions against the Dominion; attempting to prevent more Federation territory from being captured, though it did serve in a number of offensive encounters. The ship was present during the Battle of Cardassia, and was on-hand to pick up the survivors of the USS Hendrix, including Thomas' brother - now a Lieutenant Commander and the destroyed ship's commanding officer, whom Thomas was given leave from the bridge after the battle to go and visit in sickbay.

After the War

Following the war, the Repulse was assigned to the task force providing relief aid to Cardassia and other planets in the once-great empire, and Thomas spent most of the next two years in Cardassian space. By 2377 however, the Repulse was past its operational lifespan, and was due to be mothballed, and so Thomas was transferred off the ship to take up a position as chief of security aboard Starbase 128, near the Cardassian border. Though the station wasn't in the direct path to Cardassia from the Federation's 'core worlds', it was still a major port for supplies coming to Cardassia from the Galactic South, and so Thomas became responsible for the security of much of the personnel and equipment being sent to Cardassia from that region. This task was made increasingly difficult by the fact that there were still intense grudges against the Cardassians by many; particularly people whose worlds had been affected directly by the war and by the Klingons, of whom there were a great number who believed that the Cardassians weren't truly defeated until they were occupied and absorbed into the Klingon Empire.

During his time as chief of station security, Thomas' skills as an investigator truly began to develop, and he began reading the security reports of other men and women in his position aboard starbases; particularly the old reports from security chief Odo of Deep Space Nine, who Thomas found to have an extremely effective, if unconventional, style in the way he performed his duties. Five years after first being assigned to the starbase, Thomas was approached by one of the senior members of Starfleet Security on Earth and requested to join the team there as a Special Investigations Officer; responsible for a smaller team, but with far more varied cases to investigate, and a small but fast starship to enable them to be sent out to various locales and serve as a specialist unit.

It was a rare opportunity for Thomas, but one that was out of the norm for the standard progression of most Starfleet officers, and one that he felt might take him away from the action that he had craved when he first joined Starfleet. However, he had come to enjoy his life aboard Starbase 218, where there were very minimal tactical duties, and he eventually decided to accept the position, moving back to his homeworld in 2382 to begin working at Starfleet Headquarters.

Thomas knew that such a deviation from the usual career ladder would likely delay his promotion to full Commander by quite a number of years, but by that point he was no longer obsessed with the rank he held; he had matured enough to enjoy the work that he was doing more-so than the titles he had earned, and his new position allowed him to spend more time with his family on Earth - though unlike his older brother and one of his younger sisters, he hadn't yet found anyone to settle down with and start a family of his own.

Thomas' time at Starfleet Headquarters provided many different challenges for him, and saw him travel all over the Federation with the aid of the team's Raven-class starship. Investigations he oversaw included assassination plots, homicides, extreme cases of theft and corruption.

Thomas' mandatory tour of service with Starfleet Security ended in 2389 after 7 years, at which point he was able to choose to continue on in his current role for another tour, or to seek reassignment. Initially, he wanted to remain on Earth with his team, but his supervisor - Commander Karl Brisbane - convinced him that he should seek assignment on a Starfleet vessel again, in order to prevent his career from stagnating. As the role at Starfleet Headquarters effectively suspended any progression through the normal promotion ladder for him, when Thomas returned to regular fleet service, he did so almost as if he had taken a leave of absence seven years earlier, with his 'time in rank' towards his next promotion at only 5 years, rather than the full 12.

Service Record