Rachel Connor

Lieutenant Rachel Connor was a Federation MACO officer and secret augment active in the early 25th century. (Bait and Switch)

Early life:
Rachel Connor was born in the United States of America, a province of United Earth in the United Federation of Planets. At the age of 18, Rachel decided to go to Starfleet Academy for officer training in order to join the MACO corps, saying that she wanted to help protect the Federation from increasingly dangerous external threats. At the Academy, she met Kreetassian cadet Bev Kree-Sanat, who bonded with Rachel over mutual dislike of a particularly difficult class. (Liberation)

Military service:
In 2403, Rachel graduated from SERE (an elite training course for MACO soldiers and the final qualification for joining the corps) and was commissioned as an officer. She served with distinction in the Arcaunis Arm campaign, where she was injured by a stray shot, and was promoted to Lieutenant and given command of her own unit by 2405. (Liberation)

In 2405, Rachel and her unit participated in a brutal battle between Federation, Romulan rebel, and Romulan Empire forces on the planet Oricon IV. The MACOs were deployed to rescue Federation diplomat Arthur Winslow from Romulan crossfire, and successfully extracted with their target after Rachel used an apartment building as a makeshift fort, holding off Romulan ground forces for some time, and modified a phaser battle rifle to use it as an antimateriel weapon against a Romulan tank. (Liberation)

Assimilation:
In 2407, the Borg launched a surprise attack at Vega Colony, a Federation planet. Rachel and her second in command, Bev Kree-Sanat, volunteered for a highly risky mission on the surface: Targeting and destroying a Borg subspace beacon to divert Borg reinforcements. Connor successfully destroyed the beacon, but was captured by the Borg and assimilated after her rifle jammed. (Liberation)

Augment career:
Sometime before 2408, Connor was disconnected from the Borg Collective and acquired by the Federation-ultranationalist terrorist group Section 31, who used her as a prototype for a genetically-engineered superassassin, designed by a rogue scientist. However, the geneticist failed to account for the effects of the modifications that he made to Rachel's body on the control implant that had been placed in her brain stem; Rachel was not subject to Section 31 control, and swiftly killed the geneticist and Section 31 operative th'Vathandras, then escaped the facility, eliminating the security team on her way. (Liberation)

Rachel was picked up by Breen salvagers and spent the next several months attempting to evade Section 31 ambushes while returning to Federation space, and used a favor owed to her by Arthur Winslow, now a Federation councilor, to return to active duty, deciding to continue serving her nation despite the illegality of genetic augmentations. (Liberation)

For her actions in the Iconian War, in 2410, Rachel was awarded the Federation Medal of Honor by the Federation Council, and the Order of the Romulan Empire by Praetor Velal tr'Hrienteh. (Flesh and Blood)

By 2411, Rachel had been stationed on Captain Kanril Eleya's USS Bajor as a commando. In January of that year, she led an assault on a Borg installation in the Delta Quadrant, successfully recovering Borg tactical data with the help of Belka Saris (the alias of temporal operative Reshek Taryn). Connor was attacked by several Borg drones and injected with nanoprobes, but her heavily altered biology enabled her to dissolve the nanoprobes before they could affect her system. After Commander Reshek was forced to admit her real identity to Captain Kanril, Rachel was ordered to discontinue further inquiry into the temporal agent and her activities. (Brother on Brother, Daughter on Mother)

In February 2411, Rachel was called down to represent the Federation in a ritual hand-to-hand duel with a Tarin soldier. Unprepared to face a warrior-caste Tarin soldier, Rachel still won after severe injuries, and impressed the Tarin negotiator, who agreed to a closer relationship with the Federation. (The Diplomats Must Be High)

Two weeks later, Rachel met her distant ancestor, United Earth MACO Elham al-Omani, after the Bajor responded to a distress call from the temporally displaced United Earth warship Kaiser Friedrich. When al-Omani discovered Rachel's status as an augment, she reacted with extreme fear and hate, and Rachel supported her ancestor's position against Kanril's objections. When Captain Kanril lost her patience and sent both soldiers away, Rachel was confronted while getting drunk in Bajor 's lounge by one of her subordinates, the Klingon combat engineer K'tar. K'tar accused Rachel of being racist against herself and told her that she needed to stop and think about her position; enraged, Rachel attacked him and was shot multiple times with a phaser, then held in a headlock in order to restrain her long enough for her to regain her self-control. After cleaning up the mess, Rachel's squad took turns telling her that her anti-Augment positions were nonsensical and dangerous to herself and her squad, and the supersoldier eventually decided to advocate for her rights as a sapient being after further advice from Captain Kanril (Flesh and Blood).

In at least one alternate future, Rachel had been promoted to the rank of Captain, and served as Commander Reshek Taryn's immediate superior in Starfleet Special Operations Section Eight. Taryn was familiar with Connor's abilities, referencing her lie-detecting ability and superhuman strength.

Abilities:
Rachel was a decorated markswoman and successful special-forces officer before her assimilation and augmentation, awarded medals for meritorious conduct and marksmanship prior to 2407. After her augmentation, she displayed multiple superhuman abilities, including strength in excess of a similarly-sized Vulcanoid, superhuman speed, and the ability to regenerate from serious injuries in a matter of minutes.

Rachel's senses had been enhanced to the point that she was able to detect minute shifts in vocal tone and even scent caused by intense emotion or lying, enabling her to act as a living lie detector. Her body was capable of dissolving or passing any foreign substance that entered her body in a matter of minutes to hours, and could adapt to damage, such as by rapidly growing fireproof scales after suffering a severe burn. Her adaptive and regenerative abilities also required massive amounts of nutrients to fuel them, which on top of her already rapid metabolism required her to eat at least ten times as much as a baseline Human in and after some combat situations. (Liberation, Flesh and Blood)

Some of Rachel's powers could be temporarily suppressed by large doses of drugs. (The Diplomats Must Be High)

Personality:
Rachel was a foul-mouthed but courageous Federation patriot, frequently engaging in self-deprecation and fond of hard drinking as a method of stress relief. Although she was allowed her own personal quarters, Rachel preferred a bunk in the same room with her unit, enjoying the camraderie of her men. (Flesh and Blood)

Rachel was also a highly bigoted anti-Augment racist, as was common for Humans. Having been raised in Earth schools and exposed to United Earth's anti-Augment propaganda from an early age, Rachel believed that Augments were inherently dangerous, aggressive, mentally-unstable tyrants in waiting, and saw herself as a monster after her augmentation. This racism was so internalized that Rachel, despite wanting to be free and serve the Federation with full civil rights, still argued in favor of bigoted anti-Augment positions when challenged by non-Humans such as Kanril Eleya. It took multiple people telling Rachel that her position was nonsensical and wrongheaded to get her to even consider changing her mind. (Flesh and Blood)

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