Jena Tana

Jena Tana, Ph.D is an MIT trained engineering officer who originally served as an enlisted officer in Starfleet during the Borg Wars. Despite having a Doctorate degree, Jena chose to remain an Enlisted officer for much of her career, due to wanting to actually be active and working in the field, not simply sitting behind a console.

Growing up on Earth's moon, to a single mother, who was a police officer, she got into a lot of trouble. Always a tall girl, she was only 12 when she had slept with her first boy and less than a few months later, slept with her first girl. Was usually getting into fights, since she was one of the few Orion girls around. Many still held onto old prejudices about Orions, calling her names like 'Animal Girl' and 'Slave Girl.'. After she beat up a boy for demanding she act like his slave, her gym teacher saw potential in her as a wrestler and as a way to get her energy out. She took up body building and soon, became a contender for the Olympic wrestling and weightlifting teams. Competing in two Olympics she brought home both a Silver and a Bronze medal her first time around and two Silvers and a Bronze in her second. It was around this time she met her first husband. A marriage that only lasted a few months, until she caught him in bed with one of her rivals.

Her time in the Olympics earned her a full ride scholarship to MIT and she stayed until she earned her Doctorate in Structural and Mechanical Engineering. She was on spring break her final year at MIT when she was kidnapped by Orion and Ferengi slave traders who attempted to sell her into slavery. It only lasted a month, but the humiliation and scars of that experience still haunt her to this day. She is firmly against any kind of slavery and will never stand for it. Then the Borg War broke out and Starfleet came recruiting bright young minds to not only fight in the war, but also build defenses against them and rebuild colonies that were destroyed.

Jena joined Starfleet as an enlisted engineer, because she wanted to be more useful. Sitting behind a console bored her and she got a high from actually building something with her own hands. She met her second husband in the early days of the Borg War, but it ended only weeks after their honeymoon when she found out he only married her so that he had a 'beard' and found him having sex with a shuttle pilot.

Firmly swearing off men, Jena embraced her bisexuality and dated pretty much anyone she seemed to like. Taking pheromone suppressants she was able to be around women more and in time, she found she needed them less and less, but it had a side effect, for a week or so every month during her usual period, she was increasingly libidinous and she called it 'Going into Orion Heat'. Most Orions did experience something like it, but with her it amped up her sex drive.

During the last Borg War, Jena was building a defensive wall for a colony when she was injured in an attack and spent a good part of a month in a full body cast. Sidelined, but still wanting to be active, she joined the Federation USO and met up with her new and longest termed best friend, Angelica Ryder. While they didn't share any kind of sexual relationship, they were very close friends. Jena used her skill as a drummer to perform with Angel in their band. For years afterwards, Jena was pretty much always her drummer and always her back up. When Angel was assigned to the USS Mata Hari, years after the war ended, Jena joined her as an engineer (and drummer). She met one of Angel's boyfriend's fellow operatives, a woman named Dani and had a long term relationship with her.

After the Mata Hari-A was decommissioned, Jena bounced around engineering firms, deciding to take a break from Starfleet. Since Dani had been on a long term mission she decided to take time to find herself. Eventually she found herself on her old friend Angel Ryder's new posting, Outpost Byron. Anthony Ryder of AlphaTek had approached her to help design and build AlphaTek Tower on the planet's surface. She drew up some of the original designs and plans, but before she could put them into actual practical use, she was pulled back into Starfleet by Angel and Nick Ryder, this time as a full commissioned officer with a rank of Lt. Commander. She was appointed the new Chief Engineer of the station after the Terra Pax attacks.

For a time, she was in a good place, a good job, friends, even her mother had come to visit. Briefly an 'adult entertainment' producer, Ting Zi Lang, had acted in a few... adult films. Even her mother had joined the 'fun'. But eventually she got out of that and attempted another marriage, but this time a three way marriage with a Bajoran man and an Andorian woman. They got drunk one night and it just happened, but they were good friends her 'husband' was dying of a degenerative disease, and both women didn't want to see him suffer alone. So they both married him. It didn't last long, less than a year, but it opened her up to relationships again.

Eventually Jena served on the TAS Seraphim after the fall of the Federation and headed up engineering on the starship, turning over her post on the Starbase to others. It was a good move for her, as it allowed her to get even more creative with some of the new systems that she and Angel and the AlphaTek team had been developing.

She served as a Starship Chief Engineer until only recently, when the TAS Kitea was being built to replace both the TAS Seraphim and the aging TAS New Zealand. Getting closer with Angel Ryder's sister, Olivia, the two had been living together since Olivia's return in a new body following the Capitol Incident. Moving in together on a plot of land given them by Trinity Talon, Jena, Olivia and Aimee had decided to build a house that would be both shared and private. Letting her use her structural engineering skills, she built he house in record time.

Recently, after Olivia's long time lover Kirby had returned with Olivia's presumed dead husband Ethan Riddic, or at least a clone of him, Jena was fine with stepping back from Olivia and pursuing a relationship with Ethan Riddic, as she was starting to feel like she really wanted to have a child of her own. Not simply watching and raising other people's kids. During a mission to rescue Olivia's daughter Lana, she had taken an experimental pigment changing drug, which has left her more Caucasian skinned than Orion. Her true Orion pigmentation comes back lighter but the change is semi-permanent. She developed a piece of tech that allows her to color her skin back to it's natural pigment but it only lasts a little while if she wants it all over her body, so lately she simply let's her body do what it will. Her heart is still Orion, but it seems as if her Terran DNA is showing the world otherwise.