Captain Claudia Nevala

Basics:

Name:
Claudia T’Lela Nevala

Age/Date of Birth:
50/12th April 2340

Race:
Human/Romulan

Allegiance:
Federation/Starfleet

Speciality:
Engineering/Command

Appearance:

Complexion:
Claudia has an olive complexion which is notably fairer than what is common for Romulans but tanned by human standards. The shade of her skin tone has a subtle green tint due to the colour of Vulcanoid blood which has been mixed with humanoid red, this is usually covered by makeup.

Hair:
Her naturally thick, black hair has been layered and is regularly dyed various dark shades, she favours plum and dark reds. It falls in waves half way down her back which she leaves loose while off duty and up in a French plait when on duty with uncontainable wisps which cling to her temples and continues to cover her ears down to the base of her neck.

Eyes:
The colour of pure, inky onyx usually surrounded by dark makeup.

Figure:
Standing at 5’8, she has a slim but distinctively feminine shape, in part thanks to three pregnancies. Her well toned muscles are a testament to a strict fitness regime and regular yoga practise.

Distinctive features:
Claudia’s Romulan heritage is evident, despite her best efforts. Her ears have the unmistakable point which she tries to hide with her hair. Fortunately, the slight ridge across the brow is hidden by her fringe and is far less pronounced than a full blood.

Personality:
A wild child turned mother and captain. Claudia hasn’t lost her impulsive trait, which made her infamous at the academy for organising the rowdiest parties and as a prankster. Although those days are behind her, later in life it carries on as chance taker and follower of her instincts.

Claudia didn’t deal with the transition from space to settling on Earth well, and thus rebelled. It was also a way to vent pent up anger she held close to her chest regarding her Romulan heritage. While travelling on the Mercury, her family received a lot of negativity from passengers, this affected her greatly and started the life long battle to cover up the signs of her other half.

A spiritual side developed while living in India which remains a stronghold for those looking for personal peace and enlightenment rather than religion nowadays. Techniques learnt during this time helps to centre her mind. Despite this, she has had relapses into her reckless ways when depressed and feeling lost, best example is her night with Commander Knezevic resulting in an unplanned pregnancy.

Tough life lessons have sobered her considerably in her later years and she can often seem cold and uncaring in her position as captain. She is known for being tougher on young, cocky men who consider themselves flyboys, an unfortunate personal prejudice.

To all those who know her, they would say Claudia was never the same after her time in a Romulan prisoner of war camp when the mission she led fell apart. After undergoing a month of near starvation and torture, she became more introspective, impersonal and resolute.

Underwent psychiatric testing before she was offered captaincy and was found to be as recovered as possible after her ordeal. Starfleet is aware that she will be less than objective regarding Romulans and senior staff of her crew will have been briefed.

History/Background:

Parents:
Mother: Doctor Rachel Lohstroh – former Starfleet physician, current Head of Surgery at New Delhi General Hospital.

Father: Professor Tal Nevala – lecturer at the University of New Delhi and Starfleet advisor regarding the Romulan Empire

Siblings:
Younger sister: Tala Nevala, 5 years her junior - civilian archaeologist working in the Rigel sector. Married to another historian and have one son, Adam. The girls were close as children and enjoy each other’s company in later life but usually communicate through letters.

Marital Status:
Divorced from Rear Admiral Alexander Wood
(2364-2375)

Children:
Katherine ‘Kate’ Wood, b. 1st December 2364 – Starfleet Lieutenant (Tactical)
Matthew Tal Wood, b. 9th July 2366 – Starfleet Cadet (final year of Medical School)
Ashok ‘Ash’ Nevala, b. 20th January 2375 – living with mother

Childhood:
At the time of her birth on Starbase 139, Claudia’s mother, Lieutenant Rachel Lohstroh, worked as a doctor and her father a Romulan defector and biochemist Professor Tal Nevala. Her father had made the treacherous journey into Federation Space after being asked by the Romulan government to head a secret project to disperse a lethal chemical weapon into Starfleet Headquarters. After a week he tried to resign but the government threatened to kill him if he did, so he managed to escape and warn the Federation.

The couple married shortly after discovering Rachel was pregnant only six months after Tal’s arrival, after an intensely passionate relationship. Having believed the Romulan’s hadn’t tracked his cloaked transport ship, he lived with relative ease under Federation asylum for only nine months before the Tal Shiar found his whereabouts.

The Empire of course demanded him back but Starfleet had sworn to protect him in exchange for the valuable information he had given them. Over the course of several months the base was attacked four times, the Romulans wanted their man back, to make him pay for being a traitor.

Shortly after Claudia’s birth relations between the Empire and Federation were almost at breaking point, Tal decided to move further into Federation Space as 139 bordered the Neutral Zone. Knowing Tal Shiar operatives were in Starfleet, Rachel resigned and they found a commercial transport ship to ferry them to the other side of Federation Space.

What was meant to be a four month journey turned into ten years with the crew. They found moving around more beneficial and bonded with the small crew of the Mercury. Rachel tended to their medical needs and Tal worked on odd jobs to pay for their keep.

It was while growing up on this small transport ship Claudia’s fascination in how and why ships worked really bloomed. She could always be found tinkering with things down on the engineering level. By the age of seven she could strip down a manifold and fix almost every small engineering problem.

When she was ten, the family settled on Earth. Tal took a position at India’s most prestigious university and her mother worked as a doctor at a local hospital. Although the fear of the Tal Shiar was never far from their minds, Starfleet security ensured their wellbeing while on Earth.

Academy:
Claudia entered the academy at eighteen. She was extremely conscious of her Romulan looks and would often lie, explaining she was half Vulcan. Although very skilled in mathematics and engineering, Claudia struggled with humanity based subjects and became known for leaving revision to the last minute and scraping a pass in exams.

The one thing Claudia would be remembered for by her classmates was her rebellious streak. She managed to get any type of real alcohol onto campus, including Romulan Ale, as well as several varieties of illegal drugs. It is a testament to her forward planning and cunning that she was never caught despite the fact that she was often hung over and asleep during lectures.

It was during a disciplinary with four other students regarding a prank played upon the halls of residence next to hers, she met her future husband Alex Wood. An equally impulsive person, they immediately clicked and spent the last year of the academy always by each other’s side.

Starfleet/Adult:
After graduating fiftieth in her year, Claudia’s first posting was onboard the USS Galileo as a junior engineer. Much relieved to be back in space, she pushed herself hard to perform and proved herself well.

Everything changed however only a year into her posting, during shore leave she had spent a weekend with Alex and had become pregnant. She had missed her physical due to an emergency in engineering and hadn’t gotten around to booking another one, thus the contraceptive booster had worn off.

It was devastating news, she believed it was the end of her career, but after many reassurances, she convinced herself that she could juggle both. She and Alex married a month before the birth of their daughter Kate in India, Earth. The Galileo didn’t cater for children and so Claudia would spend the next six years working at Utopia Planetia Shipyards and seeing very little of her husband. Their second child, Matthew, was born eighteen months after Kate in the facility’s sickbay, Alex wasn’t present.

During this time Claudia was promoted to full Lieutenant and worked on Starship design. She was part of the team which brought the Sovereign Class to life and most notably she oversaw the installation of the bio-neural network of the Enterprise-E.

When she turned thirty, the desire to go out into space again became so strong that she couldn’t ignore it. Taking her two children with her, Claudia served onboard the USS Venture, a Galaxy-Class starship for the next ten years during the Dominion War, which the ship was heavily involved in. (2370-2380)

The breakdown of her marriage happened quickly. Communications always ended in arguments, Claudia felt she and the children were being neglected while her husband’s career was speeding ahead. By 2373, at only 33, he had already made first officer onboard a Defiant Class fighter. The divorce was finalised in 2375.

In 2372 Claudia was offered to lead an undercover information gathering mission on a in response to strange energy readings from Romulan Space. It was a risky exercise but vital to the wellbeing of the Federation. They were now deemed a huge threat, several incidents including the support of the House of Duras in the Klingon Civil War. Despite the fact they sent ships to aid the Federation-Klingon Alliance against the Dominion, Command knew they did this for their own self serving ways.

Nevala was a natural candidate, in preparation she spent several months with her father to learn the Romulan language, customs and procedures with her strike team. After only a day in the shipyards, they were captured, on the same day as Kate’s ninth birthday. It is an unclear how they were uncovered, Tal Shiar involvement was a possibility.

Out of a team of six, two would return home a month later. The young Vulcan was the first to be killed, followed by their specialists. Claudia was only kept alive because by deep genetic scans they found out that she was only half Romulan. They tortured her for days on end, wanting to know how a Human/Romulan hybrid came about and finally she broke on the twentieth day of captivity due to starvation and sleep deprivation and told them absolutely everything. The torture was stepped up after they learnt she was the daughter of a traitor. When the rescue team got to them on the twenty seventh day, Claudia was close to death.

The years of counselling afterward would never completely fix what they had done to her. She hated herself for breaking, hated herself for being a hybrid, for letting down the team she was meant to lead and for nearly leaving her children motherless.

Starfleet forced her on extended medical leave for a minimum of six months which she spent on Earth with family. She and her sister Tala went to Risa to ‘let off steam’ which did they every night for the week they were there. It was on the second night of their stay that she met Commander Luka Knezevic, First Officer of the Archimedes, also on shore leave. They had an intense, passionate relationship. Claudia needed to reassure herself that she was alive, needed to feel something other than depression, regret and despair. Luka, a purely ambitious officer who never had a thought of family or settling down, was of course a willing participant.

In true Nevala fashion, six weeks later she discovered she was pregnant. With a sex life as dead as the dodo and being too drunk to remember such things at the time of conception, she had neglected to take any contraceptives.

Deciding to raise the child alone, soured by her failed marriage and Luka had stated he never wanted to settle down. Later on Claudia would realise it was this child who saved her, brought her back into the present and gave her something else to concentrate on. Ashok Nevala was born onboard the Venture. She gave him the Indian name meaning ‘without sorrow’ in Sanskrit in honour of her teenage years in India.

Both older children decided to go into Starfleet, having followed their mother from one posting to the next. By the time Claudia was promoted to Commander and Chief Engineer of the USS Aeon, a Sovereign Class vessel, in 2384, both had left for Earth. Having hit 40 and with most of her children grown up, the desire to push herself hit her. Expressing the desire to have a ship of her own, she would have to wait until her forty-eighth birthday to be offered her own command, the USS Andromeda, a Galaxy Class vessel.

Hobbies:
During her years in India, Claudia learnt a great deal of spirituality and so regularly practises asana and prayasana. Runs a yoga class in her free time.

Career Highlights/Medals:
- Work on the Sovereign class starship
- Commendation for exceptional work during the Dominion War