Ashlynn Mariah Kostandinos

Ashlynn Kostandinos was born the second child of two resort owners on Risa. Unfortunately for her, her parents’ place of business catered more to the bawdy, ill-behaved Risan patrons than to the more civilized lot, making it an unfriendly environment for children. Although their parents expected that one day the two of them would take over the establishment, neither Ashlynn nor her brother Garren took any interest in their parents’ business, mostly because the both of them as children were afraid of the type of patrons it attracted. This became a fierce bone of contention between parents and children. When Ashlynn was 14 and Garren was 18, they saw their one chance to escape a life of catering to lewd customers in the form of a Ferengi freighter leaving Risa, bound for the Sol system. The two became stowaways aboard the vessel and, miraculously avoiding detection, made it all the way to Earth to begin a new life for themselves.
Ashlynn enrolled in Starfleet Academy at the age of 16, seeing it as a way to do something productive with her life that would provide a benefit to society. Shortly after entering she became romantically involved with an upperclass flight student, Brynn Michaels. This went on for a few months until he abruptly ended their relationship and left for ship duty, shortly before Ashlynn found out that she was carrying their daughter. Infuriated at what she perceived as abandonment, Ashlynn kept their child’s existence a secret from him for the next six years. As fate would have it, however, both Ashlynn and Brynn were assigned to the USS Hayden, and she had no choice but to tell him the whole truth concerning their relationship.
Although he was at first uneasy toward being a parent, Brynn soon found his place with Ashlynn and their daughter Adrienne. He was instrumental in rescuing Ashlynn from the man her parents had arranged for her to marry at birth, and the two had even planned to marry each other until an away mission accident cost Brynn his life. In an attempt to save him, Ashlynn took her daughter and a Hayden shuttlecraft and manipulated a temporal rift to prevent the accident, making herself AWOL in the process. Eventually, however, Brynn was taken away from Ashlynn and Adrienne permanently. Although someone unknown to Ashlynn had written up her disappearance as “missing in action” rather than “away without leave,” Ashlynn decided that it was too risky to return to active duty after Brynn’s eventual death - too many questions would be asked, and she didn’t have answers other than those which would have her arrested. Thus, Ashlynn and Adrienne settled in a remote corner of Federation space on a station known to locals as Ke Po’Vor. This lasted for quite some time, until an incident involving the USS Arondight led to Adrienne and the Arondight’s counselor being kidnapped, and Ashlynn’s identity as a former Starfleet officer being revealed to the Arondight’s crew. Adrienne was rescued unharmed, however the counselor was killed in action during the rescue attempt. Partially because the Arondight needed to fill the counselor’s position quickly, partially because Ashlynn knew she owed them dearly for returning her daughter to her, and partially because she realized Ke Po’Vor was no longer a safe place to reside, Ashlynn took this opportunity to return to Starfleet service as the Arondight’s new CNS.