STARFLEET PERSONNEL FILE: DARUN Mela RANK: Lieutenant POSITION: Operations Manager GENDER: Female RACE: Bajora AGE: 27 Years (Federation Standard) BIRTHPLACE: Ilvia / Ilvia Province / Bajor

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HISTORY

Born during the occupation, Lieutenant Darun's parents were scientists who continued their work on warp theory under Cardassian rule. She led a very sheltered existence, schooled by her parents and their fellow scientists in many disciplines. At the age of fourteen, she was sent to the Bajoran Science Academy for advanced studies, but left there and joined the Resistance after a year. Her upbringing among Bajoran and Cardassian scientists collaborating in a relatively peaceful fashion had left significant gaps in her knowledge of life and society as it existed under the occupation. This was not uncommon among her fellow students, several of whom chose to return home rather than continue their studies while their fellow Bajorans suffered.

However, Darun did not put as much stock in the stories at first until some of her classmates who had chosen to return home had turned up dead or missing. A couple had apparently joined the Resistance, and others had died trying. "Going home" turned out to mean 'identified as a resistance sympathizer and eliminated' in the Cardassian administrator's dictionary. Knowing that just running off to join the Resistance would mean a death sentence for her parents, she engineered a laboratory accident in order to fake her own death - assisted by a sympathetic lab assistant who passed a message to her family encoded in a condolence letter. She made sure to join a resistance cell as far from home as possible.

The members of her resistance cell trusted her only grudgingly. She knew that they considered her parents collaborators and traitors. For that reason, and to protect her parents from any repercussions, she avoided contacting her family again, and kept a low profile. Her parents were later killed in an action against their laboratory by another cell. She found out after the fact - her fellow freedom fighters had withheld the information so that she could not warn anyone. Of course, if she were brutally honest with herself, she probably would have tried to do just that. Ironically, the Cardassians abandoned Bajor not long after.

When the occupation ended, she went home, angry and disillusioned over the death of her parents. She found that her mother had managed to secrete a box of personal belongings with an old neighbor. However, the neighbor had moved away and Darun was unable to locate the woman. Exasperated by the increasing factionalism of the former Resistance, and feeling ambivalent about her future and disconnected from her fellow Bajora, she left Bajor and applied to Starfleet Academy. Although she did find the paperwork required to have herself counted among the living rather tedious, she felt that Starfleet would offer her the opportunity to satisfy her restless need for travel and her insatiable scientific curiosity. She tended to keep to herself, spending most of her time studying and reading and avoiding social events whenever possible. She graduated with honors in astrophysics and a minor in music.

Her first posting, to the USS Frederickson, assigned to catalogue/map subspace rifts created in high traffic areas and study the effects of warp travel on subspace, was going well, she felt. The work was fascinating, even if she did have the occasional run-in with Lieutenant Commander Oglevy (known by several of his junior staff as 'Oglevy the Ogre'). Then Frederickson was assigned to the Seventh Fleet and sent to the front lines against the Dominion. Subspace damage had to take a backseat to the fortunes of war, just as her scientific studies had when she joined the Resistance. The Seventh Fleet was decimated in a Dominion ambush, and the war began for Darun in earnest.

During the final assault on Cardassia, Darun participated in the battle from three different ships. She was rescued along with most of her crewmates from the USS Spartacus just before it was destroyed by the Breen, only to abandon ship when the USS Crockett was also mortally damaged. She kept herself and two other crewman in the escape pod alive until they were picked up by the USS Proxima by configuring the sensors to mask their life signs. Aboard Proxima, she assisted the engineering staff, which had been left short-handed by losses sustained during the battle.

After the war, Darun may perhaps have hoped for a nice quiet posting somewhere studying subspace anomalies and such. But with the widespread shortage of officers, she was instead promoted to Lieutenant (jg) and posted to the USS Firestorm as Operations Manager. If she was hoping for quiet, she was immediately aware that she wouldn't get it here. Just as she was arriving at Starbase 375 to meet up with the Firestorm, it became engaged in an encounter with an alien artificial intelligence running amok with a smallish asteroid. Darun was able to assist in determining a method of communicating with the AI using the station's long range sensors to analyze the asteroid's graviton emissions.

When the Firestorm was hijacked by a terrorist group calling themselves "The New Maquis", Lieutenant Darun coordinated a resistance to disable the ship and attempt to retake it. She and her small band re-took key areas of the ship just as their fellow crewmembers were arriving from Deep Space 8 to rescue them. In true melodramatic fashion, Darun was able to wrest control of the bridge from its own command staff almost immediately after they had secured it from the terrorist, shooting her boss Commander Iwajawa in the back. She still maintains that it was an accident, not a Freudian slip as her friend Bajah often teases her by relating to anyone who will listen.

During her last bout with shore leave, she was called home to Bajor for an impromptu reunion of sorts with a few members of her former Resistance cell. Their old cell leader, Kel Seth, had apparently located the box of personal items her parents had left for her. She hasn't yet opened it; she is not sure she is ready to face the memories of her parents, and the reminders of the words and sentiments reserved for those that the Bajora consider collaborators with the Cardassian oppressors.
Since then, between Dyson spheres, Santragi uprisings against Cardassian rule (not necessarily a bad thing in Darun’s view), and Ferengi ambushes, she's been pretty busy. The job of Operations Manager constantly forces her to expand her horizons and work to bring together knowledge from a variety of disciplines to keep the ship running smoothly, even during the relatively rare quiet patrols. It also forces her to have rather more interaction with her crewmates than has been comfortable for her in the past. Her post-war debriefing counselor thought this was a good thing, which was why she recommended the posting in the first place.

AWARDS

Darun has a tendency to hum or sing under her breath while working on difficult projects, out loud if she thinks she is alone. This helps her focus in her work, and she tends to see and work with mathematical and computer systems in musical terms. She is a fine amateur musician who also enjoys the occasional Earth-type Renaissance Festival on occasion, both as a spectator and performing participant. This would probably come as a surprise to those who think of her as anti-social and who might view such a festival as a highly social occasion.

Excerpt from evaluation by Chief Science Officer Lt. Cmdr Oglevy, USS Frederickson:
" Darun exhibits an alarming disregard for protocol, is extremely opinionated, and is overall one of the most annoying people I have ever worked with. That said, she is also one of the best and brightest members of my staff. Her curiosity and quick insight make up for her tendency to blurt out whatever she is thinking at the time. If she can ever begin to remember that this is not her resistance cell, she will make a fine officer."

Excerpt from counseling session with Darun Mela:
" I wish that I had a chance to tell Ogre how proud I was to serve with him. I mean, yeah, he was a pompous windbag, but when it counted, he really laid it on the line."
Counselor's Note: "Lt. Cmdr Oglevy was killed in action against the Dominion."

Excerpt from evaluation by Cmdr Rr’Vellan, Executive Officer, USS Firestorm:
" I will say this about some of her systems work infiltrating enemy and unknown computers: I’m glad she is on our side. Her day-to-day work is also exemplary, and she is reliable and dedicated. The lieutenant definitely shows creativity and initiative in her work, along with some promising leadership skills. I’d recommend her for Command School if I thought she’d go . . . maybe I’ll recommend her anyway. She’d really hate that."