Zephyr Praise (KIA)

{{Character Infobox |name= Zephyr Coral Praise |image= Zephyr-Praise-03.png |dept= Medical |rank= Lieutenant |position= Botanist & Doctor |species= Betazoid |age= 30 |gender=Female |orientation= Heterosexual |birthplace= USS Artemis |height= 5ft 10in / 1.78m

|weight= 135lbs / 61kg

|hair= Brown with highlights |eyes= Hazel-Green |face= Lily Collins |writer= Blue Zephyr |interests= Botany, Botanical Research
Helping people
Making friends
Being social
Loves having fun
Living life
Reading
Helping others |education=2367-2370: Starfleet Academy
2374-2378: Starfleet Academy |servicerecord= 2370-2371: USS Intrepid
2371- 2373:USS Calvary
2373-2374: USS Pegasus
2378-2379: Starbase Omega (Internship and Residency)
2379-2381: Azurite Station
2381-Pres: The Versant |decorations= Starfleet Commendation Medal (USS Calvary)
[[Diamond Star (USS Pegasus) }}

Lieutenant Zephyr Praise was a Botanist first and foremost. She served on multiple ships before deciding that research was more her passion. Going back to the Academy to double her education she graduated and dove into researching Botanical and Medical projects.

Horrific development with her research on Azurite Station, where she had been doing majority of her work, made her flee on a shuttle, but she was subsequently picked up by a Savi Precept ship named the Versant. As of March 2381, it was unknown whether or not Zephyr Praise aided in the opposition against the parasites that compromised Starfleet Command in the end of the 24th century.

Biography

Zephyr Coral Praise was born the youngest daughter to her father Griffin (Human) and her mother Apreeza (Betazoid). Her father, a Starfleet Lieutenant in Engineering, and mother, a Medical Doctor, met on the USS Artemis during a mission and quickly became enamored with one another. The two ended up falling in love and marrying rather quickly and became pregnant with their first born, a daughter, Elysium. The two officers continued to serve on the USS Artemis as their second daughter, and supposed last, Olexina, was born as well. Her mother decided, however, to step down to civilian status so that she could stay on the large ship but also spend more time raising her daughters than going on dangerous missions. Griffin continued his role as an Engineer and worked hard to support his family.

They were not planning to have any more children but Apreeza found herself pregnant for a third time. Suddenly, they were graced with the presence of Zephyr, a hazel-green eyed happy girl. From the start, she was always full of curiosity and sunshine. With three busy girls to raise, Griffin and Apreeza went through the hard choice of deciding to separate. Apreeza would take the girls to Betazed to be raised there while Griffin would continue working and come to visit them when he could. The girls missed their father but it was the best thing for them. They were immersed in Betazed culture and were able to go to proper schools and meet people like themselves. Though ridiculed slightly for only being half-Betazoid it didn't stop the girls from trying everything possible to achieve their dreams.

From an early age, Zephyr was always the kind of girl that was interested and curious about the world around her. Usually more interested in being outside even when she was a baby. When she was crying or fussy, her mother would just take her outside and she would settle right down. As Zephyr grew older, her love for all things outdoors grew more pronounced. She began to study the plants around her. Bringing collections home of flowers and comparing them to books and information she could find. Absorbing it all like a sponge. Even when she couldn't go outside, Zephyr was usually found in her room drawing pictures of hybridizing plants, even contemplating the various outcomes and side effects of such merges.

Every so often, Griffin would come home and take the entire family on research assignments when it was something that he deemed relatively safe. Zephyr loved ship life and fell into sync. She would follow people around and learned all about hydroponics and botany. The explorations of other planets never before charted spiked her interest so badly. It was then her love for Starfleet began to grow and her hope that one day she could follow in her father's footsteps.

As Zephyr grew up, she wanted to spend more and more time on the ships with her father while her sisters were apt to spend their days studying on Betazed. Elysium went on to study Veterinary Medicine. While her sister, Olexina, went on to be an artist her paintings were renown around Betazed due to their expansive declaration of raw emotions. Any time she did spend on Betazed Zephyr was often found running wild and climbing in the forests. There she was able to learn more about how things worked, the cycle of life, and collect various plants and herbs to bring home with her.

Zephyr applied herself at school, mostly because she wanted the ability to spend her time in the forests, but also because she wanted to join Starfleet. She spent her off hours working at the animal hospital where her sister worked helping out where ever she could and studying when she wasn't needed. Zephyr worked hard on her grades and even won a few competitions in school before she finally graduated with honors.

Zephyr was accepted into the Starfleet Academy and went down the Science path. Specifically, Botany and Biology. They were both her loves, medical uses for plants was something that she really wanted to follow up on and study. She also minored in various things; Emergency Medicine, Ecology, Enthobotany, and Exobiology. She stayed at the Academy a bit longer so that she could fulfill all the studying that she had wanted to do. Wanting to be a more specialized officer. She was slightly disappointed when she graduated after all that studying to be labeled a Science Officer. While in the Academy she ran into an Engineer, quite literally, and the two hit it off. Starting to date even when he was assigned to a different ship than her.

Starfleet]] Experience

She was initially assigned to a ship called the USS Intrepid. There, under the cool gaze of Captain Anders, she began as a lowly Ensign assigned to a ship that had a beautiful arboretum that she spent most of her time in. It was then that the Fleet was currently in a massive war against the Lethean race. The kind of telepathic enemies that no one wanted to mess with. One infiltrated the ship and Zephyr tried to locate it using her empathy, only to open herself up to a massive mental attack. While Zephyr survived the attack it would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Afterwards, she didn't feel comfortable on the ship, so she transferred to another ship called the USS Calvary. This was a ship that was lost in time and space and had come through a worm hole into another time line. It's original Starfleet crew were eventually taken on and other Officers allowed to join. Zeph was one of them. This ship also had one another boon to it. Her boyfriend, Ethan, had been assigned there from the Academy, which made the ship that much better for young Zephyr. There, she found her love for life again and flourished. She worked in the arboretum and the Botanical labs that the ship boasted quite happily. Eager to go about her days and weeks doing experiments and working underneath people that understood her passions and everything.

During one such mission she met an entity named The Wanderer. An incorpreal being that would only speak to Zephyr's mind despite trying to block it out. It was hungry and was destroying planets for food and fun. Next was her ship. Zephyr did everything she could to distract the entity and allow the Engineers to set a trap. It was not overly difficult to convince the entity into the trap as it never suspected a thing. It was zapped, and while not killed, it was run off and the Calvary was left in piece. For her actions during the mission she had received a medal.

Zephyr served for several years on board the ship, Calvary, before she was offered a Department Head position on the USS Pegasus. The smaller ship was a culture shock to her, and the lack of a Botany lab was hard for her to wrap her head around, but she made it work. Now with the rank of Lieutenant she found herself rather enjoying all the little things that came with running a department her way. It was here, during a mission regarding clones that she earned her Diamond Star. Being able to find a way to identify the clones from the actual people was paramount to her receiving this medal. It was not easy to decipher the genetic code but she and her team worked diligently to find that one key that would unlock it all. During her tenure on the Pegasus, she was sent into an Arboretum on Starbase Omega, to do some work on rebuilding one that had been destroyed in a space battle. However, it was something she would never be able to forget.

Botanical Nightmares

While she was working in the Starbase´s arboretum the entire thing locked down. Red alert, containment. Immediately, Zephyr and the other workers tried to get out, but they couldn't. Until the contamination was secured they would not be allowed to leave. There was a mist in the air and soon there was some form of alien plant life moving through the entire building. It took out several of the workers with sharp plant like barbs that shot out of it's toothy mouth and embedded themselves into the flesh. She seed pods would kill the host body and germinate until they were mature enough to shoot it's own barbs. Zephyr had never feared for her life as much as she did in the darkened room. She fought the plant life and worked together with other officers to hold on long enough. They were able to subdue the plant and get to the oxygen before the Starbase vented the atmosphere inside the building, cleaning it out completely. She and two others managed to live, everyone else in the room died or was infected by the plant life.

Zephyr went into shock and even began seizing when she was taken in for medical care. She hadn't been shot by any of the barbs but she had been attacked by some kind of fluid that the plant had spit at her. Burning her skin. She didn't seem to have any adverse effects once they stopped her from seizing and Zephyr was cleared for duty. However, mentally, the attack took it's toll on the young woman. She hit rock bottom right at the same time that Ethan, her then fiance, had been given a First Officer position on another ship. He left her when she needed him the most and never once looked back. He never called her, wrote her, or anything. She never would see Ethan again. Through good friends and lots of therapy, Zephyr pulled herself back out of the darkness and was able to conquer her fears and return to duty after many months of trying to put herself back together. The loss of Ethan hit her hard and she decided not to date for a while. Sending his engagement ring back to his mother, a message, not to even try at this point.

Pure Promise

Zephyr never rejoined her ship and the experience she had both haunted and inspired her. She had done some research on the, now highly classified, experience that she had and found that the name of the plant life was [i]Trictorcanis Consumae[/i] a plant that was native to a planet called Ruro III. The plant life had always been inert but when it was mixed with a chemical given off by a plant from a planet known as Trysolo Eleven, it had mutated into the hungry machine that it had been. Getting samples of both the plants, Zephyr wanted to experiment on the plant life and see what she could do with it. Having found a friend in a local Hermat, Meylon 133, she was told about their incredible metabolisms and healing. So Zephyr began a set of experiments on merging Hermat DNA and cloning abilities with plants in the hope of creating some medical miracles that would be useful in the field.

The plan was that the merged DNA of the Hermat and the plant life would enable the person's skin to clone itself over the wounds, including muscles, blood vessels, and skin.  It was better and quicker than a dermal regenerator and it was the person's own cells with just a little botanical material left over.  It would reduce any kind of reactions or rejections and it could work on severed limbs as well.  Zephyr was excited over the mere promise of such a project and took it on with gusto. She reserved herself a bio lab that was locked down and ready to vent if necessary. Taking all the precautions that she could the plant would not be mutated into the killing machine it had been nor would it contaminate the Base. However, the deeper she got into the project the more she realized she needed more than just Scientific and Botanical knowledge. Zephyr knew that if she was going to do this right she needed to go back to the Academy to receive Medical training.

She had already had some experience in Emergency and Field medicine and could do basic triage in the field. But to do the kind of research that she wanted, and properly, she was going to actually need some real know knowledge. Zephyr resigned her commission of Starbase Omega pending her training. Back to the Academy, she went, and another few years of studying and working as hard as she could, Zephyr graduated the Academy again, this time as a Medical doctor. But as with all Doctors she had to work somewhere to go through her internship and residency. Finding a position back on Starbase Omega once more, she dove into work. When she wasn't doing her residency she was back in the labs with knew ideas and new knowledge on how to complete the tasks that she wanted to complete.

Her research caught the eye of Commander Theodore Cartwright, when she was requesting various labs and pushing through with research papers and the like would catch the desk of his office every so often. He was always on the look out for fresh and intelligent talent like Zephyr Praise. Cartwright set up a meeting with Zephyr and the two got along very well. He offered her a position at a place she had never heard of; Azurite Station.

New Chapters

Azurite Station was something no one ever heard of unless you worked there or delivered there. It was hush hush in the biggest way. Eager to put her Science and Medical training to work she grabbed at the chance for a new start and was shipped off to the Azurite Station with Cartwright as her guide. Once there she was given a Quarters, a lab, and anything that she needed and asked for. They were very interested in her work with the [i]Trictorcanis Consumae[/i] and the Hermat DNA. The mere promise of possibilities and effects it could have interested them. They had Hermat on staff and all of them were ordered that any time she needed more blood or DNA they were to give her whatever she needed. Instead she got right to work developing something that she had only wanted to do for some time now. The excitement of the position didn't wane for many months when she finally developed a working prototype and longed to try it on someone. The finished formula was name ZCP-1033588b.

The station began to send her test subjects when she felt it was ready for testing. Zephyr was told that the people she was to try her new cure on had been injured in various ways in the line of duty and had volunteered to come here for medical treatment. So, she went about administering the clone formula.

As the wounds received their care, Zephyr could only hope that it would work. The wound was closed and the skin was healed over. Everything seemed to be fine even on medical scans. But the people were kept for observation. Everyone cheered at first, drinks were had, pats on the back were given. Only that night, things changed. The screams of a nurse came from the biolab where everyone was being watched. Things had changed drastically. Instead of the skin being healed, and the person being ready to get back to life as normal there was some kind of pod lying just under the skin. It seemed the seed pods germinated and burst after forty eight hours. Each person, in order that they had received their treatments, it was like clock work, the pod would pop. Not a single person seemed to be in pain despite the holes where their wounds had been, the seed pods inside, and furthermore the fact that it couldn't feel good to have your skin ripped open like that. They were all happy, smiling, it was horrifying.

Quickly, she and the medical team leapt into action, removing the pods from the wounds and using the old dermal regenerators to actually heal the people. She reported the issue and by the time all the surgeries were done she looked up, exhausted, and found that they were being watched by Cartwright and his associates. The next day she was called into his office, he told her to stand down on her project and turn in all her research material. What she had been working on was too dangerous and there was no room for error on something like that. He stated he didn't want to risk their subjects and officers with something so dangerous. She understood, and with a saddened and dejected heart she closed out her research, cleaned her lab, and turned in all her things putting the odd plant virus and cloning thoughts out of her mind for the time being.

A Different Path

Cartwright gave her another project, merging various fruit plants in order to have the trees and plants bear dual fruits instead of the one. This way terraforming and dome type set ups would have more food faster having only to grow one plant. Bonus points if it could run on little water. So she went back to her work, using Botany for the greater good in the hopes that this time things would go better.

One day, she had a meeting with Cartwright about all of the progress that she had made. On her way back through the station, Zephyr had taken a detour down a hallway she had never been down before. She had heavy clearance because she had already been named the Lead Researcher of Botanical Origins and that came with full clearance to just about anywhere on the station. Using her keycard, she entered the restricted area she had not been into before and found herself in a morgue. Beyond that was a small bio lab. Bright yellow letters on the door way spoke of Botanical containment area, to not enter without protective suits.

Curious, since Botany was her area, she stepped forward and peeked through the window. Only to find herself horrified at the site of people having sex in a room that was over grown with the odd plants that she remembered all too well. Amid the under growth they fornicated with partner after partner, there were even some vines that were penetrating the women and they were enjoying it. Off to the side she could see men, separated, in another pen enjoying some form of pleasure themselves though luckily she couldn't see what it was. Everyone was smiling, enjoying themselves, Zephyr felt her stomach drop. Turning back to the morgue she began removing the sheets that covered the dead. They had moved past the actual just cloning... these women had pods bursting from their wombs. She was horrified that her research was not only still being used, but that it was being used incorrectly. More than that, on purpose, they were killing people. Who knew what had happened to them? She quickly used a storage device and downloaded all the files she could off the computer that was connected to the wall and pocketed it. She knew she had to get out.

Buying her time, she tried hard not to raise alarms. She smiled, ate, researched, and work like it was clock work. She knew that on every other Wednesday they had a delivery. Wounded, supplies, food, whatever. She would have to make use of that time. Luckily, Zephyr didn't have anything that she really needed to take with her. No pets, nothing that she couldn't replace at another time. So, when the day come and the people were busy unloading the shuttle craft she slipped on in disguise and hid herself in one of the storage compartments. All she had to do was get away and not let anyone find her. She thought herself nearly discovered, but it was only a false alarm and soon they were off. She felt an immense sense of relief. Zeph opted to stay hidden for a while so that no one could inform Azurite Station of her whereabouts if they were too close. She knew that she needed to get to the Federation and tell them what was going on at the Azurite station. The Federation was supposed to be the arm of peace and assistance, whatever they were doing with her research, was anything but.

However, she never was able to get herself out of the hiding spot she put herself in. Zephyr was beamed off the shuttle. As far as she could tell she was one of three that had been taken from the shuttle. She learned they were called the Savi, and she learned they did nothing but want hybrids to correct their DNA. She didn't want to be corrected, but it was either pick or be recycled. She learned quickly that recycling was death, and the people of the Savi would consume her protein as their food. Forced into a recycling chamber she chose to be full Betazoid because she didn't think she could ever live with just being human. She was far too gifted with her empathy and she used it rather frequently.

The pain of the change was insurmountable. But at least, she was alive, to feel the pain.

Personality Profile

Zephyr was the kind person. The sort of person that would give her last shirt to someone if it would have made them a little warmer or brightened up their day. She made friends out of just about everyone she could find around. She loved conversations, people, socializing and being around groups. She enjoyed pictures, mementos, and making memories.

When it came to working, Zephyr could be a bit focused and single minded at times. When she was running with an idea or a research project, like many passionate people, she could forget about the world around her. Sometimes it would take people getting her attention and holding it to get her to break the cycle. Often times when she was on duty, Zephyr's warm demeanor would change slightly to that of one that was all business. She was still warm and friendly but there was an aire of importance about her. One that she would push onto the others around her. Professionalism was paramount to her when she was on the job and she expected no less of the people around her.

Zephyr, off duty, was a very warm and open person. She hardly ever met a stranger. She would talk to the most random people and by the time she left they were friends. Zephyr would put just about anyone else's needs in front of her own. She was the sort that was fun loving and enjoyed having a good time. Zephyr was always known for wanting to have fun. Running out, experiencing new things, whatever she could find to do with her time. Game for just about anything, Zephyr could be the life of the party.

Physical Profile

Zephyr stood at five feet ten inches tall and weighs about one hundred and thirty five pounds. Shewas slender but she was strong as well. Not covered in muscle but she was well toned. Her skin was pale and she had a lovely tattoo on her left shoulder of purple flowers and leaves that a friend had drawn for her once. It was the only tattoo that she had on her body. She had soft brown hair with highlights that fell to her shoulder. Hazel green eyes that are uncommon for a Half-Betazoid. She was good with her hands but could be clumsy when she was busy working and not paying attention to what she was doing. She tended to pick at her fingers when she was nervous so there was usually irritated skin or blood on the sides of her thumbs. She had a beautiful smile and an infectious laugh. On her left forearm was a long puffy scar from her childhood that she never healed properly. When she was off duty she tended to dress comfortably in jeans and tshirts. There were times you could catch her in warm sweaters as well. She liked to dress nicely and always fixed her hair properly. She was always one to take pride in her appearance.

Special Notes

Zephyr had a love for animals and went out of her way to make sure they could all run free in the arboretums where she worked when time allowed. Often Zephyr would spend her time in the holodecks exploring the forests from her home. She made a hobby out of collecting plants from various planets and bringing them into her Quarters to grow.