Tamara Melari

**Tamara 'Meds' Melari** is a Maialan-born, former Centran Marine who serves as the quartermaster and ship's doctor aboard the privateer vessel *Guinevere*.

## Biography

### Early life

Tamara Melari was born on the planet of Maiala's Rest. A medic by training, she operated a clinic along with Jennah.

Working with poor resources, Meds was sickened by the increasing Militia violence on Maiala's Rest that characterised the months leading up to the Frontier War. In the aftermath of the Militia's bombing of the Tordesh Distribution Centre, Meds' clinic took in injured survivors and treated them without regard to affiliation or loyalty. This ultimately lead to an altercation with Nassar and the death of one of her patients.

### Centran Marine Corps service

At the outbreak of the Frontier War, Meds held no sympathy for the Frontier Union's cause and defected to the Centrum Assembly, joining the Centran Marine Corps. During her Frontier War service, she met Cassandra Farren. After the war's end, Cass fell into a deep depression owing to her wartime actions, and attempted suicide. Meds rescued Cass and attempted to treat her anxiety issues.

After Cass recovered the CSV *Huntress* from a shipbreaking yard in the Rialtis System and rechristened her the *Guinevere*, Meds joined her as a privateer.

### Avalon Exploratory Initiative

#### Lost in CDC-41-Gamma

Serving as the *Guinevere's* medic and quartermaster, Meds accompanied the Avalon Expedition to the CDC-41-Gamma nebula in 0304 PCU. Meds witnessed the violent first contact between the *Mariana* and a ship of the nebula's native civilisation, and saved the life of a wounded survivor aboard the wrecked gatehauler GH-0007-VG.

#### The Avalon Bombings

Following the first Avalon Bombing, which was perpetrated using Union-made explosive, Meds immediately suspected that the Frontier Union Militia contingent of the Expedition had been responsible, and advocated for removing Unioner personnel from the *Avalon* until an investigation could be completed.

As the Unioners were evacuated aboard the Militia frigate *Abigail*, a second bomb, planted by Centran inventory officer Michael Favara, detonated, destroying the *Abigail* and killing the entire Unioner crew. After viewing Favarra's suicide note, Meds admitted that she had allowed her animosity towards Unioners to affect her judgement.

#### Expedition on the Vitrified Planet

Several weeks after the Avalon Bombings, on 98th of Solstice, Meds was part of the *Guinevere's* expedition to a pulsar system, the first to be directly explored by humans, at the behest of Elizabeth Ancelet. Meds convinced Cass to accompany Elizabeth on a seven-day expedition on the surface of pulsar planet while she and Croft completed scans of the pulsar. After several days of observing the pulsar, which they found to be unsettling, Meds and Croft realised that Cass and Elizabeth had missed their check-in time and returned to the planet to investigate. Discovering Cass and the severely-injured Elizabeth fallen down a crevasse, Meds and Croft successfully recovered them and returned them to the *Guinevere*. Meds thereafter oversaw Cass and Elizabeth's recovery in the *Guinevere's* sickbay.

#### *Triumph* hostage incident

Meds was present when the *Triumph*, a civilian orbital ferry that had illegally accompanied the Expedition through Edric's Gate, made contact with the *Avalon*. After Foreman Richard Sedgewick took hostages from the *Avalon*, believing the Expedition to be concealing the location of a "Verdant Paradise" in CDC-41-Gamma, Meds advised Jasper Ravi on how to respond in Elizabeth Ancelet's absence. Ravi developed a plan to infiltrate the *Triumph* through its waste disposal system, and rather than deploy Centran Marines, Croft and Meds agreed to go in the hope of negotiating a peaceful end to the hostage situation. Boarding the *Triumph*, Croft and Meds successfully convinced its chief engineer, Bridget Volkova, that Sedgewick had misled them. Leading them to the *Triumph's* command centre, Volkova successfully convinced the rest of the crew to release the hostages, and Croft and Meds took Sedgewick into custody.

#### Redfield's coup attempt

When the CSV *Shabayev* led by Vice Admiral Winston Redfield re-established contact with the *Avalon*, Meds initially joined the celebrations, but clashed with one of the *Shabayev's* Marines, Private Paul Dalcop, when it became clear that they had looted wrecked Merician ships. When Admiral Redfield seized control of the *Avalon* and seized the *Guinevere*, Meds and Croft were arrested to be pressed into service.

Croft and Meds were posted to the *Shabayev*, where they had limited privileges. Ultimately, Redfield was unable to convince either of them to assist in piloting the requisitioned *Guinevere*, while poor morale and exhaustion among the *Shabayev's* crew provoked a brawl in the dining hall that Croft and Meds were caught up in. This was one factor that led Redfield to choose to stand down his coup attempt and return control to Elizabeth Ancelet, and Croft and Meds were able to return to the *Guinevere* with Cass.

#### Rescue of the Merician ships

Some time later, the Avalon Expedition Fleet received a distress call from three Merician ships led by the *Friendly Expedience*, which had been lost for months in the nebula. The *Guinevere* crew led a rescue mission to return the Merician ships to the fleet, accompanied by Castian Vadric, an Advari taken prisoner by the CSV *Shabayev*, as a guide. Meds was suspicious of Vadric's intentions when she caught him unescorted in the *Guinevere's* avionics bay, but relented when she realised that he was simply interested in seeing where the Tantalus Cluster was in CDC-41-Gamma's sky. Meds later saved Vadric's life after he was incapacitated during a high-*g* burn as part of the escape of the Merician ships from an Advari lightship.

## Personality

> *"They started that war! They turned my birthplace into a fortress and murdered thousands. And when I stood against them they turned me into a pariah."* - Meds, describing her reasons for distrusting the Frontier Union to Cassandra Farren.
>
>

Meds has a semi-serious personality, given her role aboard the *Guinevere*, but she often plays off the antics of Mathias Croft, showing a more sarcastic side to her on occasion. Despite being born on Maiala's Rest, Meds has little sympathy for the Frontier Union, and holds a general distrust and animosity towards Unioners, to the point that she blames the Union for starting the war and exacerbating the Famine. Meds' defection to the Centrum Assembly during the war has become somewhat notorious in the Frontier Union, and she is no longer welcome on her home planet.

Although her past experiences during the Frontier War have left Meds with a deep hatred towards the Frontier Union and their cause, the Avalon Bombings perpetrated by Michael Favarra out of misplaced fear of Unioners, and the actions taken by Captain Tamika Jinn to protect the *Avalon* before her death in the destruction of the *Abigail*, have forced her to reassess her beliefs on the morality of Unioners.

Meds can sing well, even whilst intoxicated, and enjoys singing songs by artist Travis Lock. Although chided for this due to Travis Lock's apparent "kiddiness", she claims that it "always helped [her] relax" during stressful periods between combat during the Frontier War.

## Relationships

### Cassandra Farren

Tamara Melari and Cassandra Farren served together in the Centrum Defence Force during the Frontier War. Meds saved Cass' life when she attempted suicide, and has more than once assisted Cass with her anxiety issues and panic attacks stemming from her wartime experiences, instructing her to begin a journal in order to better process the trauma she has experienced, though Cass privately expresses scepticism at this.

Despite their wartime service and four years of working together on the *Guinevere*, Meds claims to have never seen Cass drunk, likely due to her commitment to hard work. Unlike Cass, Meds has found it difficult to put her dislike of the Frontier Union behind her, and Meds' willingness to think the worst of Unioners has been a point of contention between the two women.

### Mathias Croft

Tamara Melari's more serious personality means that she and the jovial and optimistic Mathias Croft often trade sarcastic barbs. However this does not interfere with their working relationship, and Croft has shown a greater willingness to socialise with Meds than Cass has, despite the two women's history. However, Croft is not particularly sympathetic to Meds' extreme distrust of Unioners.

### Elizabeth Ancelet

Elizabeth Ancelet and Meds generally have a good working relationship. However, the two clashed in the aftermath of the first *Avalon* bombing when Meds insensitively suggested that the Elizabeth failed to grasp the risk of further bombings (Elizabeth being a native of the Firewatch System, which suffered a similar bombing attack in 0277 PCU). Against her better judgement, Elizabeth agreed to Meds' suggestion to move the Unioner complement off the *Avalon* while the investigation was ongoing, resulting in the loss of much of the Unioner contigent in the destruction of the *Abigail* in the second *Avalon* bombing.

In the aftermath of the near-disaster on the Vitrified Planet, Elizabeth approached Meds for advice on how best to help Cass through her traumatic memories. Meds assured her that she had achieved more in helping Cass than anything she had achieved in the past four years.

## Appearances

* "Pilot"
* Anthology Shorts
	+ *Bright Promise*
	+ *Discontinuity* (mentioned only)
	+ *Scar Tissue*
* Volume 1
	+ *The Cold Divide*
	+ *Inclement Weather*
	+ *Yesterday's War*
* Volume 2
	+ *Dust and Shadow*
	+ *The Promised Land*
	+ *Theirs Not to Make Reply*

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 *Yesterday's War*
2. ↑ *The Cold Divide* - Cass; "Maybe we can stop off on Maiala's Rest some time. You could check on your old clinic?" Meds; "Place has probably burned down in a food riot by now, and anyway – I doubt I have too many fans back home."
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *Bright Promise*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 *Inclement Weather*
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 *Discontinuity*
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 *The Cold Divide*
7. ↑ *Dust and Shadow*
8. ↑ *The Promised Land*
9. ↑ *Theirs Not to Make Reply*
10. ↑ *Theirs Not to Reason Why*
11. ↑ *Contact, Wait Out*
12. ↑ *Yesterday's War* - Croft; "I really don’t know what you’re embarrassed about, you have a beautiful voice." Meds; "I am not embarrassed. And this is the last time I drink anything that you 'made in the machine shop'."
13. ↑ *Yesterday's War* - Croft; "Still though, wouldn’t have pegged you for a Travis Lock fan..." Meds; "If you must know, it’s always helped me to relax. In the war we used to spend hours on standby just waiting for the shooting to start. You’ve got to fill that time with something other than staring into the mirror, or you’ll drive yourself mad."
14. ↑ *The Canary*
15. ↑ *Scar Tissue*