Edward Shield

Edward James Shield was an Ensign Junior Class aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-C between 2332 and 2344. After the deaths of the senior officers, he was promoted to Captain.

Birth
Born on Lunar Colony 7 on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, in 2317 Edward Shield was the youngest of nine children. His father, Leopold Pedrag Shield, was the former Secretary of Defense of the Federation Council. His mother, Marya, was of unknown origins from somewhere on Earth.

Childhood and Death of Parents
Shield's father was no family man, and wanted nothing to do with these children that he had made. He spent no time among them, always trying to get back into favor with the Federation Council. One by one, his older brothers either left for Starfleet Academy or ran away from home, leaving him - Shield - alone to face the wrath of their father.

In 2324, Leopold was finally given a position as the Secretary of the President of the Federation. However, his new office would be on Megara II, so Leopold packed up his wife and his son, boarded a passenger ship and headed for Megara II.

The ship came out of warp unexpectedly, but none of this bothered anyone onboard. It wasn't until it was too late that they discovered the problem. A group of Romulan pirates had sent out a false distress signal, which caught the attention of the passenger liner. Once they had come out of warp, the pirate's flagship, the Romulan warbird Kalryhha, opened fire on the passenger ship. When the shields finally gave out, the Romulans beamed on to the ship and slaughtered everyone on board. Leopold and Marya were slain by one of the younger pirates, but he refused to slay seven-year-old Edward Shield.

The Romulans didn't scuttle the ship, so it was later picked up by another Federation vessel hours later. Edward was taken back to Titan to live in an orphanage.

Though Edward believed his father had died that day, he was wrong...

Starfleet Academy
In 2327, at the age of ten, Edward Shield surprised the orphanage headmaster by surpassing all the other orphans in their studies. The headmaster personally vouched for Edward Shield to be accepted into Starfleet Academy. At first, the committee refused to do so, because he was so young. Again the petition was made, and again it was denied. Only after a third time was Edward Shield accepted into the Academy.

For the next five years, Shield took every course offered in Starfleet Academy. He was exceptionally bright, if not a little controversial. He graduated the youngest of his class, but was not to be accepted into the fleet until reaching the age of nineteen.

Before the Enterprise-C was launched in 2332, a representative from the new crew came to the Academy looking for students willing to get some first-hand experience or possibly future jobs with Starfleet. Though he was only fifteen, Shield signed up for the junior officer corps. The Academy teachers refused blatantly to allow this, until they received a personal visit from Rachel Garrett, the captain of the Enterprise, who personally vouched for Shield.

Enterprise Years: Ensign
Since he was young, Shield could not be given a command of his own. He was promoted to Cadet and placed under the head of the Junior Officer corps., a Vulcan named T'Mar. Due to his age, T'Mar did not allow Shield to see any action during his time aboard the ship, but drilled him endlessly during his studies. Though, as a teenager, he resented this, Shield later commented about his training with her:

If it hadn't been for all the training, all the hard-work, all the [expletive] she put me through, I doubt I'd still be alive today.

The training paid off, for he was one day being toured on the bridge, when he noticed a faulty command console that was about to explode in the captain's face. He pushed out of the way, just as the panel exploded, saving her life. For this, he was promoted to Ensign Junior class and allowed access to the bridge.

Narendra III
In 2344, the Enterprise-C received a distress call from the Klingon outposts over Narendra III. They were under attack by the Romulans. Captain Garrett ordered the Enterprise to action to defend the outposts. Once they had reached the Narendra system, they saw that they had entered a "blood-bath". She immediately sent a distress call to the Enterprise's sister-ship, the U.S.S. Admonitor, to come to their aid before they became beleaugered. But it was too late. The Enterprise was on the verge of destruction...

Until a wormhole took the Enterprise-C into the future. Shield never went aboard the other ship, but he learned a little from the talk he heard being whispered among the crew. From what he learned, the other captain told Garrett to go back into the wormhole, even though it meant certain death. She obliged, but Shield didn't like this decision.

According to his own personal log, he was on the bridge, repairing damaged circuitry, when the captain's command console exploded, sending shrapnel into Garrett's face. She was dead, and he felt personally responsible for the incident.

Richard Castillo took command of the Enterprise-C, and took it through the wormhole back to 2344. It was no better, and the Admonitor hadn't come. But when the Romulans had brought the Enterprise to critical condition, they boarded the ship and took prisoners. Shield was hit by a disruptor blast, but survived somehow.

When he awoke, the bridge was deserted and the ship was on the verge of destruction. Atmosphere was leaking, the warp engines were offline and the shields couldn't be reactivated to protect against a laser barrage. He was about to resign himself to his death when T'Mar arrived on the bridge. Due to her Vulcan strength, she was able to save Shield and take him to a part of the ship that had some remnant of atmosphere left.

When all hope seemed gone, the Admonitor finally arrived...