Lieutenant Melara sh'Tagras
[ On Extended Leave of Absence ]
As a result of her harsh training at school Melara was more than happy to go straight from school to Starfleet Academy. Although her first choice was the traditional Earth campus she was assigned to the annex on Psi Upsilon III instead – an altogether quieter establishment.
Whilst at the Academy Melara found that she had three main career choices before her – to either go into the security/tactical area of Starfleet, or to follow up the Academy with a spell at Starfleet Marine Academy, or to take more of a risk and accept the challenge of taking a medical course (something which comparatively few Andorians had ever done before, but something which Melara felt drawn to somehow). Her courses during years three and four showed this split interest to a high extent. Apart from the core modules all of her subjects were either in the security, strategy, and tactics spheres or in the medical, and scientific spheres. Despite all her tutors both advising her to make a decision and to choose the career path most closely related to their particular subject Tagras resolutely refused to make a choice until after her final exams. Her overall average was 88.92%: not a bad score really, but the fact that her lowest science module mark was 88% and her highest tactical one was 89% made her decision.
So what was an Andorian – with a 98.8% phaser range accuracy score, who’d won every award for her shooting the Psi Upsilon annex could throw at her and only come second in the inter-Academy shooting team championships by a margin of less than 0.0001 millimetres at the weapon’s maximum range, with a love of science and especially medicine only really born in the last four years, whose entire family had been soldiers as long as anyone could remember, and whose body and mind had been honed for combat since she was two – to do?
The Marines appealed for sentimental reasons, but she also knew that when push came to shove the Marines did not hold high regard in the upper echelons of Starfleet – as would be proved by her Shreya’s (Genetic Mother) and Thi’s (Male Brother) presumed and Zhavey’s (Birthing Mother) definite demise on AR 558. They’d been as good as abandoned there and her family had been decimated by it. Her Thavan (First Father) was one of the leaders of the second wave of troops there and, despite surviving his tour being the man to discover his Zh’yi’s (Second Female Bondmate – Wife) body combined with the other horrors he’d seen on AR-558, upon being rotated off active duty promptly went AWOL – it would later be discovered that during this time he was killed by an unknown assailant after a long binge on both narcotics and alcohol. Her Charan (Second Father) was stationed on Ricktor Prime as the Marine Regiment’s XO. He, along with the entire Eighth Rifles, was killed there fighting to the last man less than two months after the loss of both his zh’yi and sh’za (Female Bondmates – Wives). Although her elder brother (chi) and sister (zhi) had continued the family tradition and were already in the Marines Melara felt somehow put off – even by the thought of becoming a combat medic. She just didn’t want to be reminded of her parents at every turn.
That just left the choice between spending another four years at the Medical Academy (although more work) most likely on Earth – as long as they’d have her – or to go straight into her first posting. She somehow didn’t feel ready to go straight into the ‘real world’ and so applied, and was accepted, into the Starfleet Medical Academy on Earth– far nicer than the Psi Upsilon III Academy Annex she’d attended the first course at.
After the move to Earth she found life very enjoyable. Her first few weeks passed before she really realised it had even begun. She made a good group of friends amongst the medical cadets – a few of whom she already knew from Psi Upsilon III – but without all the security-slanted cadets she’d gotten friendly with in the previous four years her social life took a bit of a tumble as she hit the medical books – and greatly enjoyed it, it must be said. She did her best extra-curricular activities involved keeping up her, admittedly high level amateur – but still, amateur martial arts and combat techniques as well as her high level of shooting. She joined the Medical Academy’s shooting team and was widely tipped to become its captain in her second year after only her first month (a feat before unparalleled), but these rumours did not affect her shooting and she maintained a 98.8% accuracy rating.
The beginning of her second month on Earth was, however, to bring a change to her life – as well as ‘spicing it up a bit’. After a fairly ordinary start the quiet life of the paradise that was Earth was broken by the Breen Raid on San Francisco. Melara herself was not caught up in the attack as at the time she’d been in the underground firing range – well out of harm’s way – practicing her shooting as a way to fill a gap in her timetable. In the aftermath of the attack however the 2nd year medical cadet was called upon to take care of a certain Trill 2nd year cadet who’d been trapped in a stairwell which had collapsed. A broken fibula was the only harm Talara Amblitsio suffered – fortunately – and once Tagras had treated this the two of them got to know each other a bit. This chance meeting would in fact develop into a long-term friendship and the two were only separated when Talara began her spell on the Trafalgar and Melara hers on the Sarek.
During the rest of her first, second, third and fourth years Melara had a fantastic time. Her marks were for the most part above the 95% level, her captaincy of the Medical Academy shooting team saw it win the most consecutive prizes it had ever known, she also consolidated her – until then – fairly broad martial arts training into Anbo-jitsu and although she greatly enjoyed playing and wasn’t that bad, she only made it into the Medical Academy’s team once – and lost her bout, her joining the Medical Academy’s Parrises Squares team was however much more successful and the team was victorious against Melara’s alma mater’s team during her third year. On the social front Talara and Melara were a very common sight at social gatherings; rarely being seen apart. Although she hung around a younger and according to almost every criterion more attractive companion the Andorian didn’t fail to attract her fair share of potential suitors, but was known for being far less diplomatic when dealing with such advances than her friend – often being known to resort to low levels of violence when made particularly forward proposals by male cadets.
Academically she was finding her best marks came in the more surgical areas, while her worst came in the diagnostic specialities. In her final two years, aside from the four core modules, she selected three surgical modules, three internal medicine modules, two emergency medicine modules, one paediatric module, and one neurological module.
Her final exam averages put her in the top twenty of her class – just: at twentieth – and she was very proud of her 95.1% score. By some stroke of luck it transpired that both she and Talara had been assigned to, what many considered – including Talara, a very dull post: Jupiter Station. Melara however was very excited by this prospect. Not only did it mean she was still very close to Andoria should she ever wish to return, but also that she was also in a department with some of the Federation’s most eminent physicians – many of whom had been directly working with Dr Lewis Zimmerman on the EMH Mark III and IV projects. Although the Holoprogramming Centre was still functioning it wasn’t the same without Zimmerman playing an active role and despite the Andorian hoping she might asked to play a part in the EMH project this did not happen and she instead spent a lot of time learning just how tedious life as a Doctor could be in the heart of the Federation. She did, however, take the opportunity to begin researching, in her spare time, novel treatments for the Levodian Flu, for which traditional treatments were beginning to lose effectiveness.
Outside this research the new Lieutenant Junior Grade found herself mostly working on what she found to be fairly boring cases – sprained ankles, bruised elbows… the mundane parts of a Doctor’s life which generally dominated. During this tedium her famously short fuse seemed to shorten even more – even Talara noticed it. And to Melara it looked like this one year might have killed her career as she seemed to spend the entire time arguing with both of her superiors and bossing those at the same level as her around without even intending to. However the appraisals she received from that year were glowing. The female Bajoran Assistant Chief Medical Officer credited her with “An uncontainable enthusiasm which is infectious in those around her and a symptom of which is that Lieutenant Tagras will usually end up commanding a situation whether asked to or not” and the Tellarite Chief Medical Officer even went as far as to say “This young Doctor’s temperament is one of the finest I have seen in one so young and her ability to clearly and pointedly express herself combined with an insatiable appetite for more responsibilities makes her perfectly suited for a position requiring such a candidate.” It was a stroke of luck. No other pairing of superiors would have found a stubborn, opinionated and bossy underling straight out of Medical Academy anything other than annoying – and for all Melara knew these appraisals might have been overcooked simply because they wanted rid of her and praise was the easiest way possible in which to achieve that.
Whatever the reason for Tagras’ recommendation thanks to it she was assigned to the USS Cardiff as the Assistant Chief Medical Officer. Even better than this Talara had also been assigned to the Cardiff – it seemed someone up there quite liked the idea of that particular pairing looking out for each other. Her time on the Cardiff was thoroughly enjoyable for Melara. Her superior was a fairly elderly human whose appetite for Medicine was slowly declining. Although this meant Tagras had to fill out more paperwork and perform menial medical tasks than before it also meant that when the more exciting and rare medical incidents happened Melara often found herself running the show with her superior only acting as a supervisor. The two year period of her service really saw her grow as a doctor – admittedly the number of the duller tasks did nothing to help lengthen her short fuse – but she did discover the joys of coffee. This amazing beverage was the best way to get through tedium filled days and by the end of her time on the Cardiff she was already regularly drinking ten mugs a day.
When a crew review occurred in September 2382 the Cardiff underwent a serious set of changes. Melara was expecting her superior officer to retire and for her to possibly be promoted to his position, but the old man surprised everyone by staying. The Andorian did however get a promotion and was immediately assigned to the USS Sarek as the Chief Medical Officer. At the same time she was pleased to hear that Talara had been given the same treatment and although they had not been lucky enough to be assigned to the same post again their respective ships were on patrol very close to one another.
Her first year on the Sarek passed in an oddly quiet manner. As a result her coffee consumption rose to new heights and her team of nurses began taking bets as to how many cups she would drink on any particular day. Captain Hatfield was pleased by her performance however and four years after graduating from the Medical Academy Melara was promoted to Lieutenant. The next eighteen months saw great changes on the Sarek. Almost the entire command staff would change in this time and despite a small disciplinary infraction Melara maintained her high standards (and high coffee consumption) to such an extent that despite the fact that she had not passed the Bridge Officer’s Test Captain Vlenn unofficially appointed her as Second Officer during the Methani mission. Melara relished the challenge of providing such humanitarian aid against the odds she was facing and for the first three quarters of the mission everything seemed to be going very well.
However all the work had seriously put the Andorian under far too much strain and a seemingly innocuous argument with a junior security officer over their treatment of one of the Doctor’s patients turned ugly and Vlenn was left with no choice but to relieve Tagras of duty. Although this was supposedly a punishment Melara was able to use the two weeks off wisely. Thanks to Vlenn’s recommendation Melara returned to Earth and during this period of R&R took, and passed, the Bridge Officer’s Test – something which she did not expect to be of any use to her for a few years yet anyway, but she felt better having got it out of the way.
With her time off complete Melara made her way to DS5 to meet back up with the Sarek there, just in time to see Captain Vlenn replaced with Captain H’Rhar. She would spend almost three years under her fellow Andorian’s command and she developed an excellent rapport with her as both CMO and Second Officer - despite Melara’s continued temperament problems. Indeed, when the opportunity for Melara to take part in the research activities in the Hromi Cluster she had to plead with the, then, Admiral H’Rhar to let her go, which was only achieved reluctantly - and indeed pull some strings to get her appointed.
Her time under H’Rhar on the Sarek saw her mostly avoid further disciplinary hearings, although the bulkheads around sickbay had to have their soundproofing improved in order to block out the worst of her ranting. One of the more memorable cases she had to deal with was when many DS5 crew were rescued from a relatively inhospitable world where they had been left by the Boaorans.
The year in the field, with the notoriously difficult Commander O’Dwyer in command, was a very new experience for Melara. There was very little need for medical provision, so she had lots of time to use the labs on the USS Sutherland exploring the strange biological samples about which the project centred. Much of the work was of a sensitive nature, but Melara really enjoyed the chance to get to grips with it.
Upon completion of the repairs to Starbase 65, and its commissioning as Langley Station, Melara was hoping to be assigned there as CMO, but her direct superior in the Linotype project, Dr Dhuro, beat her to the punch. This had the knock-on effect, however, that Dhuro’s spot in the research team of the HCRI became available. Melara applied for it and, much to her surprise, her application was accepted, which gave her the opportunity to work at a much greater level of detail in the much better equipped labs of the HCRI on Regulus III. This was an immense relief to her as the original assignment would have been to the Vulcan Science Academy - the idea of Melara surrounded by Vulcans with volatile chemicals nearby does not especially bear thinking about and this may indeed have been behind the HCRI’s decision.
Her two years working on the LINOTYPE project did not produce major results and when her secondment was reviewed at the end of the period the decision was made that LINOTYPE was to be allocated fewer resources. Thus Melara found herself back in uniform. An opening on DS5, where she still had some friends, was immediately her preferred assignment and she did not hesitate to request it.
2375 – 2379: Medical Cadet – Starfleet Medical Academy, San Francisco, Earth
2379 (Between assignments – Upon Successful Completion of Medical Academy): Promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade
2379 – 2380: Medical Officer – Jupiter Station, Sol System – Lieutenant Junior Grade
2380 – 2382: Assistant Chief Medical Officer – USS Cardiff, Various – Lieutenant Junior Grade
2382 – 2384: Chief Medical Officer – USS Sarek, Various – Lieutenant Junior Grade
2384: Promoted to Lieutenant, Chief Medical Officer/Second Officer (Unofficially acting in this position under Captain Vlenn) – USS Sarek, Various – Lieutenant
2384: Given 2 weeks leave to ‘de-stress’ after disciplinary incident aboard USS Sarek. During this time Tagras returned to Earth to complete the Bridge Officer’s Test earlier than required with recommendation of Captain Senaris Vlenn.
2384 – 2387: Chief Medical Officer/Second Officer – USS Sarek, Various – Lieutenant.
2387 – 2388: Chief Medical Officer & Lead Medical Researcher – Starbase 65 Repair & Research Expedition, USS Sutherland, Triolis System, Hromi Cluster – Lieutenant.
2388 – 2390: Project LINOTYPE Researcher, Hromi Cluster Research Institute, Regulus III Science Academy – On secondment from Starfleet.
2390 – Present: Chief Medical Officer, Deep Space Five.
[ On Extended Leave of Absence ]
| Character Information | ||
| Name | Melara Tava sh'Tagras | |
| Rank | Lieutenant | |
| Position | Assistant Chief Medical Officer | |
| Gender | Female | |
| Species | Andorian | |
| Age | 35 | |
| Physical Appearance | ||
| Height | 6’ 0” | |
| Weight | 165 lbs. | |
| Eye Color | Light Brown | |
| Hair Color | Blonde/White | |
| Physical Description | For a woman Melara is very tall – and with the antennae she seems even taller than she in fact is – but she is in excellent shape. She has managed to avoid becoming ‘over-muscled’ and so to maintain a good balance between strength and speed. Proportionally her body, limbs and head are a very good fit so despite her size she doesn’t look at all lanky - in fact when she stands up after sitting down people are often surprised by how tall she really is. Despite these things looks-wise Tagras is fairly plain. Hanging around with a stunner of a Trill obviously wouldn’t have exactly overturned this image during her early career. To look at her you might expect Melara to be a calm, competent and quiet type – until she starts shouting at you louder than a quantum torpedo exploding in an atmosphere. |
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| Personality & Traits | ||
| General Overview | ||
| Melara is almost eternally angry. Shouting at people never seems either unreasonable or out of place. Ok… she’s maybe not *that* bad, but she has an extremely short temper and the slightest thing can set it off. Even on duty this often gets the better of her and her subordinates (and even superiors) have grown used to having to endure endless rants over seemingly unimportant matters – more because the Andorian is stressed than because it’s actually something she cares about. To most she appears hostile, obtrusive, opinionated, self-confident, but with it a decent leader who can and probably will get the job done – she just might step on a few toes along the way. Subtlety is not a trait built into her character in any way whatsoever. When it comes to decision-making Melara is an odd paradox. Any professional or urgent decision she seems able to make with very little difficulty or hesitation yet when it comes to decisions in her personal life she might have to think them over for hours. The reason for this does at first seem contradictory: Tagras is impulsive – she knows this. Thus when it comes to making a personal decision she fights to stop her impulsivity making the decision so she can make the right choice in the long run. Melara is not opposed to socialising, but when she doesn’t really know a group of people she will normally back out of socialising with them. On Sarek – as most of those on the crew she was comfortable socialising with left during the changes in the Sarek’s personnel between Captains Hatfield and Vlenn – with the exception of her nursing team she does in fact feel very isolated and this was something she realised during her two weeks off duty. And it is something she decided needed to be rectified. She can indeed be perfectly amiable, but this will generally only be when in company she respects and either gets on with or feels it’s worth restraining herself in order to make a good impression on. In many ways this was the best thing about having Talara around – the Trill seemed to have a calming effect on the hot-headed Andorian. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | ||
| Melara’s strengths lie in her command ability – being able to make decisions quickly and then conveying that information to those around her, her medical and bio-chemistry knowledge, her combat skills, her fitness and her great accuracy with a phaser. Melara’s greatest weakness is probably her temper. It can be very useful indeed, but most of the time it holds her back and gets in her way. If she loses control of it then no thing and no body is safe – as a Security and an Engineering Ensign have found out in the past. Melara is pretty useless at piloting or actually operating systems on an auxiliary craft apart from maybe the sensors, phasers and communications systems (which one would hope were fool-proof). She is also pretty much incapable of fixing technology or even understanding how it works. She has a simple rule when technology breaks: hit it. |
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| Ambitions | ||
| Being completely honest about her ambitions, Melara isn’t sure what she wants to end up doing. She passed the Bridge Officer’s test very early in her career and spent three and a half years gaining experience in that area. She enjoyed it, but she did find it limiting in terms of taking on medical research as well as seeing her work in Sickbay piling up. When given the opportunity to take on a more active-research role in the Hromi Cluster on the SB65 repair and research project, followed by a secondment to the HCRI she leapt at the chance. Now that secondment has come to an end and she has returned to service in the fleet she needs to make her decision whether the command path or Starfleet Medical is what she wants to do. |
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| Hobbies & Interests | ||
| Melara has never been much of a reader, but she still likes to keep up to date with medical goings on in the world. She works on a lot of research projects in her spare time and often can be found on subspace collaborating with other CMOs around the fleet. She still keeps up with her anbo-jytsu, parrises squares and of course – her shooting. Her average is now up to 98.93%, but she’d still love to get it higher – just to show up her chi (elder – youngest – brother) and zhi (elder sister) who have 98.95% and 99.00% averages respectively. |
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| Languages | Andorian, Federation Standard, some Klingon. | |
| Family | ||
| Father | Father (Thavan): Major Granko th’Tagras (AWOL – Found Deceased)||Father (Charan): Lieutenant Col | |
| Mother | (Shreya): Sergeant Rema sh’Tumas (MIA – Presumed Dead)||Mother (Zhavey): (Marine) Captain Chara | |
| Brother(s) | Brother (thi): 2nd Lieutenant Shar th’Tagras (MIA – Presumed Dead)||Brother (chi):1st Lieutenant Shran ch’Tagras, attached to USS Drake | |
| Sister(s) | Sister (zhi): Staff Sergeant zh’Shathrissia, attached to USS Repulse | |
| Spouse | ||
| Children | ||
| Other Family | Various, but none of whom she is in touch with | |
History
Melara was the fourth (and last) child born to her quadrate family and was sent to Andorian Military boarding schools from when she was 2. She can barely even remember any of her parents, which given their fates was possibly easier on her in the long run. They were all in the Starfleet Marine Corps and apart from occasional letters and even rarer visits she had no contact with them whatsoever. In fact the first time she consciously met her Charan (Second Father) was at the funeral of her Zhavey (Birth Mother). At her school – as at all Andorian schools – discipline was harsh, but she soon learned to cope with that and was a model student: excelling in both academic and physical subjects.As a result of her harsh training at school Melara was more than happy to go straight from school to Starfleet Academy. Although her first choice was the traditional Earth campus she was assigned to the annex on Psi Upsilon III instead – an altogether quieter establishment.
Whilst at the Academy Melara found that she had three main career choices before her – to either go into the security/tactical area of Starfleet, or to follow up the Academy with a spell at Starfleet Marine Academy, or to take more of a risk and accept the challenge of taking a medical course (something which comparatively few Andorians had ever done before, but something which Melara felt drawn to somehow). Her courses during years three and four showed this split interest to a high extent. Apart from the core modules all of her subjects were either in the security, strategy, and tactics spheres or in the medical, and scientific spheres. Despite all her tutors both advising her to make a decision and to choose the career path most closely related to their particular subject Tagras resolutely refused to make a choice until after her final exams. Her overall average was 88.92%: not a bad score really, but the fact that her lowest science module mark was 88% and her highest tactical one was 89% made her decision.
So what was an Andorian – with a 98.8% phaser range accuracy score, who’d won every award for her shooting the Psi Upsilon annex could throw at her and only come second in the inter-Academy shooting team championships by a margin of less than 0.0001 millimetres at the weapon’s maximum range, with a love of science and especially medicine only really born in the last four years, whose entire family had been soldiers as long as anyone could remember, and whose body and mind had been honed for combat since she was two – to do?
The Marines appealed for sentimental reasons, but she also knew that when push came to shove the Marines did not hold high regard in the upper echelons of Starfleet – as would be proved by her Shreya’s (Genetic Mother) and Thi’s (Male Brother) presumed and Zhavey’s (Birthing Mother) definite demise on AR 558. They’d been as good as abandoned there and her family had been decimated by it. Her Thavan (First Father) was one of the leaders of the second wave of troops there and, despite surviving his tour being the man to discover his Zh’yi’s (Second Female Bondmate – Wife) body combined with the other horrors he’d seen on AR-558, upon being rotated off active duty promptly went AWOL – it would later be discovered that during this time he was killed by an unknown assailant after a long binge on both narcotics and alcohol. Her Charan (Second Father) was stationed on Ricktor Prime as the Marine Regiment’s XO. He, along with the entire Eighth Rifles, was killed there fighting to the last man less than two months after the loss of both his zh’yi and sh’za (Female Bondmates – Wives). Although her elder brother (chi) and sister (zhi) had continued the family tradition and were already in the Marines Melara felt somehow put off – even by the thought of becoming a combat medic. She just didn’t want to be reminded of her parents at every turn.
That just left the choice between spending another four years at the Medical Academy (although more work) most likely on Earth – as long as they’d have her – or to go straight into her first posting. She somehow didn’t feel ready to go straight into the ‘real world’ and so applied, and was accepted, into the Starfleet Medical Academy on Earth– far nicer than the Psi Upsilon III Academy Annex she’d attended the first course at.
After the move to Earth she found life very enjoyable. Her first few weeks passed before she really realised it had even begun. She made a good group of friends amongst the medical cadets – a few of whom she already knew from Psi Upsilon III – but without all the security-slanted cadets she’d gotten friendly with in the previous four years her social life took a bit of a tumble as she hit the medical books – and greatly enjoyed it, it must be said. She did her best extra-curricular activities involved keeping up her, admittedly high level amateur – but still, amateur martial arts and combat techniques as well as her high level of shooting. She joined the Medical Academy’s shooting team and was widely tipped to become its captain in her second year after only her first month (a feat before unparalleled), but these rumours did not affect her shooting and she maintained a 98.8% accuracy rating.
The beginning of her second month on Earth was, however, to bring a change to her life – as well as ‘spicing it up a bit’. After a fairly ordinary start the quiet life of the paradise that was Earth was broken by the Breen Raid on San Francisco. Melara herself was not caught up in the attack as at the time she’d been in the underground firing range – well out of harm’s way – practicing her shooting as a way to fill a gap in her timetable. In the aftermath of the attack however the 2nd year medical cadet was called upon to take care of a certain Trill 2nd year cadet who’d been trapped in a stairwell which had collapsed. A broken fibula was the only harm Talara Amblitsio suffered – fortunately – and once Tagras had treated this the two of them got to know each other a bit. This chance meeting would in fact develop into a long-term friendship and the two were only separated when Talara began her spell on the Trafalgar and Melara hers on the Sarek.
During the rest of her first, second, third and fourth years Melara had a fantastic time. Her marks were for the most part above the 95% level, her captaincy of the Medical Academy shooting team saw it win the most consecutive prizes it had ever known, she also consolidated her – until then – fairly broad martial arts training into Anbo-jitsu and although she greatly enjoyed playing and wasn’t that bad, she only made it into the Medical Academy’s team once – and lost her bout, her joining the Medical Academy’s Parrises Squares team was however much more successful and the team was victorious against Melara’s alma mater’s team during her third year. On the social front Talara and Melara were a very common sight at social gatherings; rarely being seen apart. Although she hung around a younger and according to almost every criterion more attractive companion the Andorian didn’t fail to attract her fair share of potential suitors, but was known for being far less diplomatic when dealing with such advances than her friend – often being known to resort to low levels of violence when made particularly forward proposals by male cadets.
Academically she was finding her best marks came in the more surgical areas, while her worst came in the diagnostic specialities. In her final two years, aside from the four core modules, she selected three surgical modules, three internal medicine modules, two emergency medicine modules, one paediatric module, and one neurological module.
Her final exam averages put her in the top twenty of her class – just: at twentieth – and she was very proud of her 95.1% score. By some stroke of luck it transpired that both she and Talara had been assigned to, what many considered – including Talara, a very dull post: Jupiter Station. Melara however was very excited by this prospect. Not only did it mean she was still very close to Andoria should she ever wish to return, but also that she was also in a department with some of the Federation’s most eminent physicians – many of whom had been directly working with Dr Lewis Zimmerman on the EMH Mark III and IV projects. Although the Holoprogramming Centre was still functioning it wasn’t the same without Zimmerman playing an active role and despite the Andorian hoping she might asked to play a part in the EMH project this did not happen and she instead spent a lot of time learning just how tedious life as a Doctor could be in the heart of the Federation. She did, however, take the opportunity to begin researching, in her spare time, novel treatments for the Levodian Flu, for which traditional treatments were beginning to lose effectiveness.
Outside this research the new Lieutenant Junior Grade found herself mostly working on what she found to be fairly boring cases – sprained ankles, bruised elbows… the mundane parts of a Doctor’s life which generally dominated. During this tedium her famously short fuse seemed to shorten even more – even Talara noticed it. And to Melara it looked like this one year might have killed her career as she seemed to spend the entire time arguing with both of her superiors and bossing those at the same level as her around without even intending to. However the appraisals she received from that year were glowing. The female Bajoran Assistant Chief Medical Officer credited her with “An uncontainable enthusiasm which is infectious in those around her and a symptom of which is that Lieutenant Tagras will usually end up commanding a situation whether asked to or not” and the Tellarite Chief Medical Officer even went as far as to say “This young Doctor’s temperament is one of the finest I have seen in one so young and her ability to clearly and pointedly express herself combined with an insatiable appetite for more responsibilities makes her perfectly suited for a position requiring such a candidate.” It was a stroke of luck. No other pairing of superiors would have found a stubborn, opinionated and bossy underling straight out of Medical Academy anything other than annoying – and for all Melara knew these appraisals might have been overcooked simply because they wanted rid of her and praise was the easiest way possible in which to achieve that.
Whatever the reason for Tagras’ recommendation thanks to it she was assigned to the USS Cardiff as the Assistant Chief Medical Officer. Even better than this Talara had also been assigned to the Cardiff – it seemed someone up there quite liked the idea of that particular pairing looking out for each other. Her time on the Cardiff was thoroughly enjoyable for Melara. Her superior was a fairly elderly human whose appetite for Medicine was slowly declining. Although this meant Tagras had to fill out more paperwork and perform menial medical tasks than before it also meant that when the more exciting and rare medical incidents happened Melara often found herself running the show with her superior only acting as a supervisor. The two year period of her service really saw her grow as a doctor – admittedly the number of the duller tasks did nothing to help lengthen her short fuse – but she did discover the joys of coffee. This amazing beverage was the best way to get through tedium filled days and by the end of her time on the Cardiff she was already regularly drinking ten mugs a day.
When a crew review occurred in September 2382 the Cardiff underwent a serious set of changes. Melara was expecting her superior officer to retire and for her to possibly be promoted to his position, but the old man surprised everyone by staying. The Andorian did however get a promotion and was immediately assigned to the USS Sarek as the Chief Medical Officer. At the same time she was pleased to hear that Talara had been given the same treatment and although they had not been lucky enough to be assigned to the same post again their respective ships were on patrol very close to one another.
Her first year on the Sarek passed in an oddly quiet manner. As a result her coffee consumption rose to new heights and her team of nurses began taking bets as to how many cups she would drink on any particular day. Captain Hatfield was pleased by her performance however and four years after graduating from the Medical Academy Melara was promoted to Lieutenant. The next eighteen months saw great changes on the Sarek. Almost the entire command staff would change in this time and despite a small disciplinary infraction Melara maintained her high standards (and high coffee consumption) to such an extent that despite the fact that she had not passed the Bridge Officer’s Test Captain Vlenn unofficially appointed her as Second Officer during the Methani mission. Melara relished the challenge of providing such humanitarian aid against the odds she was facing and for the first three quarters of the mission everything seemed to be going very well.
However all the work had seriously put the Andorian under far too much strain and a seemingly innocuous argument with a junior security officer over their treatment of one of the Doctor’s patients turned ugly and Vlenn was left with no choice but to relieve Tagras of duty. Although this was supposedly a punishment Melara was able to use the two weeks off wisely. Thanks to Vlenn’s recommendation Melara returned to Earth and during this period of R&R took, and passed, the Bridge Officer’s Test – something which she did not expect to be of any use to her for a few years yet anyway, but she felt better having got it out of the way.
With her time off complete Melara made her way to DS5 to meet back up with the Sarek there, just in time to see Captain Vlenn replaced with Captain H’Rhar. She would spend almost three years under her fellow Andorian’s command and she developed an excellent rapport with her as both CMO and Second Officer - despite Melara’s continued temperament problems. Indeed, when the opportunity for Melara to take part in the research activities in the Hromi Cluster she had to plead with the, then, Admiral H’Rhar to let her go, which was only achieved reluctantly - and indeed pull some strings to get her appointed.
Her time under H’Rhar on the Sarek saw her mostly avoid further disciplinary hearings, although the bulkheads around sickbay had to have their soundproofing improved in order to block out the worst of her ranting. One of the more memorable cases she had to deal with was when many DS5 crew were rescued from a relatively inhospitable world where they had been left by the Boaorans.
The year in the field, with the notoriously difficult Commander O’Dwyer in command, was a very new experience for Melara. There was very little need for medical provision, so she had lots of time to use the labs on the USS Sutherland exploring the strange biological samples about which the project centred. Much of the work was of a sensitive nature, but Melara really enjoyed the chance to get to grips with it.
Upon completion of the repairs to Starbase 65, and its commissioning as Langley Station, Melara was hoping to be assigned there as CMO, but her direct superior in the Linotype project, Dr Dhuro, beat her to the punch. This had the knock-on effect, however, that Dhuro’s spot in the research team of the HCRI became available. Melara applied for it and, much to her surprise, her application was accepted, which gave her the opportunity to work at a much greater level of detail in the much better equipped labs of the HCRI on Regulus III. This was an immense relief to her as the original assignment would have been to the Vulcan Science Academy - the idea of Melara surrounded by Vulcans with volatile chemicals nearby does not especially bear thinking about and this may indeed have been behind the HCRI’s decision.
Her two years working on the LINOTYPE project did not produce major results and when her secondment was reviewed at the end of the period the decision was made that LINOTYPE was to be allocated fewer resources. Thus Melara found herself back in uniform. An opening on DS5, where she still had some friends, was immediately her preferred assignment and she did not hesitate to request it.
Service Record
2371 – 2375: Cadet – Starfleet Academy Annex Psi Upsilon III2375 – 2379: Medical Cadet – Starfleet Medical Academy, San Francisco, Earth
2379 (Between assignments – Upon Successful Completion of Medical Academy): Promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade
2379 – 2380: Medical Officer – Jupiter Station, Sol System – Lieutenant Junior Grade
2380 – 2382: Assistant Chief Medical Officer – USS Cardiff, Various – Lieutenant Junior Grade
2382 – 2384: Chief Medical Officer – USS Sarek, Various – Lieutenant Junior Grade
2384: Promoted to Lieutenant, Chief Medical Officer/Second Officer (Unofficially acting in this position under Captain Vlenn) – USS Sarek, Various – Lieutenant
2384: Given 2 weeks leave to ‘de-stress’ after disciplinary incident aboard USS Sarek. During this time Tagras returned to Earth to complete the Bridge Officer’s Test earlier than required with recommendation of Captain Senaris Vlenn.
2384 – 2387: Chief Medical Officer/Second Officer – USS Sarek, Various – Lieutenant.
2387 – 2388: Chief Medical Officer & Lead Medical Researcher – Starbase 65 Repair & Research Expedition, USS Sutherland, Triolis System, Hromi Cluster – Lieutenant.
2388 – 2390: Project LINOTYPE Researcher, Hromi Cluster Research Institute, Regulus III Science Academy – On secondment from Starfleet.
2390 – Present: Chief Medical Officer, Deep Space Five.
Awards
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