Telak, Ilana

Basics

Name: Ilana Telak
Species: Cardassian
Gender: Female
Date of Birth: 3rd May 2355
Age: 23
Place of birth: Bajor

Appearance

Height: 5 foot 6
Eyes: Green
Hair: Black
Characteristic elements: General Cardassian characteristics / Thin black wire that runs from just above her left ear to her larynx / Very small for a Cardassian and very thin

General:

Family

Mother: Kattel Telak - Cardassian - Primary teacher
Father: Vonar - Cardassian - Former military officer
Siblings: Kell (Brother) (Deceased in military service)
Lona (Sister) (Deceased in Bajoran Resistance attack)
Enan (Brother) (Deceased in military service)
Korin (Sister) (Deceased in Resistance attack)
Significant others: Raynor Hughes
Children: /


Personality

Ilana is painfully shy, due to the fact that she has a severe stammer stemming from extensive scarring to the Broca's area of her brain.  However, don't challenge her in her sickbay, or you might end up regretting it!  Since her association with Raynor Hughes, she has learned to stand up for herself more.


Backstory

Born on Bajor during the Cardassian Occupation, Ilana lead a fairly priviledged life for the first three years of her life.  However, when the Cardassians withdrew from Bajor, her parents made a decision they thought would give their daughter the best future.  They, and about one hundred others, bartered with a freighter captain for him to take them onto his ship until they could find a world to resettle on.

They entered the Federation, seeking asylum at numerous planets along the way, but were refused by all.  Days turned into months, and then years as the sub-light freighter went along its way.  Disease and malnourishment ran rampant through those who lived in one of the ship's cargo holds.  The few children found entertainment where they could.  Unfortunately, that entertainment wasn't always safe.

At the age of eight years, Ilana went exploring the delapidated ship on her own and found herself in a small room designed for conduit maintenance.  With a child's curiousity, she investigated further.  Without warning, one of the conduits sprung a leak, dousing the child with radiation.  Her injuries were severe, but they healed with time, although they left her with a severe stammer.  Having learned her lesson and her child's innocence destroyed by the incident, she turned to trying to help the group's only member with any resemblance of medical training to look after the ill.

For twelve years, the freighter carried its Cardassian cargo.  It was boarded by a Federation vessel by the name of the USS Antares, who had detected suspect readings from one of its cargo bays.  A team stumbled on the group of Cardassians, their numbers almost halved by the conditions they lived in.  They were quickly taken into custody on the Antares and taken care of by the medical staff.  Many of Ilana's injuries from the radiation leak were able to be healed and all evidence removed by their advanced technology, nothing could be done about the scarring to her brain tissue, leaving her with her stammer.

Intrigued by how differently medicine was applied, Ilana followed the Antares' Chief Medical Officer as much as she could, curious about how things were done.  Thankfully, Doctor Meredith took a shine to the teenager and even let Ilana take on a nursing role.

With the Federation's help, the group found a planet to resettle on.  Having seen the talents that the young Cardassian displayed, Doctor Meredith kept in touch and helped her get into medical school before sponsoring her into the Academy.

With the Cardassian's notable memory, Ilana was a very bright pupil with a hunger for learning and a determination to be the best she could be in order to make up for her inablity to speak without stammering.  However, she wasn't the most welcome of students amongst her classmates both at medical school and at the Academy.  Because of this, she often avoided as much contact with them as she could, spending a lot of her time in the libraries doing extra credit projects or taking in as much information as she could.  She was also highly self conscious of her appearance as, due to the conditions of her childhood, she was on the smaller, skinnier end of the scale when it came to Cardassians.

Through keeping her head down and working as hard as she could, she made her way through the Academy and to a place on a starship, where she intends to continue working just as hard.  She has no ambition to one day command a ship of her own, preferring to stay within the medical domain.

Since joining the service on a deep space assignment, she has since made friends with an unlikely candidate: Raynor Hughes.  They have an interesting relationship, almost like brother and sister, and one which she hopes to continue as he is the only one she has trusted enough so far to even begin to let into her life.

Ilana recently modified and installed a Borg vocal subprocessor in order to regain her speech after an accident rendered her mute.  The most recent change in her life, however, is that she had Raynor have moved into a romantic relationship.

Career

Starbase 249 - Medical - (Cadet)
USS Gibson - Medical (Ensign)
Starbase Athena - Medical (Ensign)