Shilen Alaya

**Shilen Alaya** serves as a member of the operations team, (Formerly Assistant Chief of Operations) aboard the USS Phoenix under Lt Commander. Ghost, she's known to be a dedicated and hardworking member of the operations team, she still is primarily responsible for assigning the majority of the operations teams, she chooses to be a very hands-on member of the department, choosing quite frequently to go and visit various operations requests in person to judge the priority of how things should be repaired. (A skill she picked up from watching how the medical crew operated during the attack on Earth Space Dock and adapted to work with her operations routine.)

She currently holds the rank of Lieutenant. This was earned aboard the USS Phoenix for hard work and dedication within the operations department, awarded by Commodore Rejema Khassid.

## Early Life

Alaya was born the youngest of three siblings - by around a minute, that is. She was born one of three triplets, having both an older brother and a sister. Alaya's parents were both Starfleet officers and as such she grew up on a starship alongside her two siblings. The ship her mother and father served on, the *USS Galashiels,* was a surprisingly good home for the family. It was an older vessel which excelled in engineering. Admittedly it shouldn’t have been a ship for a family to stay aboard; the place was rickety and rather falling apart, but it had its charm.

Onboard the *Galashiels* her father was the first officer and former chief engineer, and her mother was chief operations officer. They had both served a quite lengthy career, and were both highly respected by the captain, a older gentleman who was considered by most to be past his prime as captain. The older man frequently looked after the triplets instead of turning up to important meetings, much to the annoyance of everyone at Starfleet command.

Her early life on the ship was fun; she'd often wander around the ship, watching the engineers fixing all the little issues here and there, what with her parents being so into their engineering she heard them talking about a significant amount as a child. She'd picked up a few hobbies of repairing old equipment to impress her parents, and actually got rather good at it, which eventually led to her being recommended by her parents to travel back to earth to join Starfleet Academy, so she could actually get a job on the starship for real.

## Starfleet Academy

### Heading for the academy

Having spent her entire life on a starship, the concept of going to a *planet* was daunting. She'd visited starbases when the ship had stopped for repairs and such, but she found the wide open spaces scary. Planets were even worse; full of empty space and too many people… It was something that she held off for quite a while despite her desire to learn. Eventually, she worked up the courage to apply for the academy at the age of 18 largely due to a letter of recommendation from her captain as opposed to her confidence, she was accepted. The prospect of leaving her parents and the safety of her home was scary for her, but eventually she boarded a passing ship headed back to earth, and wished her parents farewell.

### Academy Life

The first few months of the academy were very rough on Alaya, she suffered quite heavily at the prospect of the new environment, facing frequent panic attacks at the sheer amount of people around her all the time. Eventually she was diagnosed by the academy medical staff with severe agoraphobia, and she was given medication to help deal with it. She frequently underwent counselling sessions, and the friendly denobulan-betazoid counsellor who ran sessions once a week soon had helped Alaya to manage her fears and reach out to others. Academy Life came easier to her from then onwards, she made a couple of friends, who would help guide her through the academy, and keep her calm whenever she would begin to experience any of her panic attacks. Eventually she graduated from the academy with above average grades. Her parents were proud of her, and Alaya was happy at the prospect of getting back onto the safety and comfort of a starship.

## Life in Starfleet

### First Posting

Her first posting - much to her disappointment - was not back onto the starship her parents were serving on... But it was at least what she was used to, a Constellation class starship, quite an old ship to be fair. Her first posting was spent mostly doing quiet shifts in engineering, covering mostly the gamma shift and keeping the ship held together, which constantly threatened to fling itself apart. The ship wasn't as homely as the one she grew up on, and as such she had a hard time settling in. However after a while she ended up making good friends with her roommate, a young science officer. Her first ship was great, it really gave her an outlook of what she wanted to do in life. And after a brief stint of about six years aboard her first ship, it was soon decommissioned due to its age.

### Second Posting

Her second posting was much worse. She wanted to get into operations, like her mother, and so applied for a operations posting for her new transfer. Unfortunately, with minimal starship spaces available, she ended up being posted on a starbase. This was her worst nightmare. There were too many people, it was such a large place to navigate, and so easy to get lost in. She wasn't looking forward to the posting, but decided this would be a good opportunity to see what operations was really like.

Her first few months aboard the Starbase felt like hell, she had to return to the same medication she was on during her academy years, and ended up taking a lot of time off work because of it. After around six months, dangerously close to losing her job, she finally managed to reach out to that counsellor she had spoken to from before. From then, she managed to pull through and get herself sorted out. The Starbase soon became a second home to her… But a part of her always wanted to go back onto a starship, being stationary for too long in such a large place seemed like there was no way to live.

## USS Phoenix

### Moving to the USS Phoenix

Alaya served around 5 good years aboard the Starbase. She was happy, and was doing really good work there, but still she was constantly looking out for new postings… The only thing was that she still didn't find a ship that appealed to her. She thought about giving up and just living the rest of her life on this boring Starbase. She wouldn't have to stay on the Starbase for very much longer, however. A massive engineering project came up aboard her Starbase - the construction of a new vessel named the *Phoenix.* It was glorious, and having experience in both departments, she found herself able to co-ordinate between both operations and engineering. It was truly a marvellous opportunity and she learned one heck of a lot, acting as a team leader quite often and bolstering her skills.

The *Phoenix* was a beautiful ship, and once the project was over she was sad to see it sail off into the unknown. She couldn’t help but think about what life would be like out there aboard it. It was like the perfect cross between a ship and a starbase; large enough, but not too large, with a nice crew who could become close to one another… She yearned to be aboard but the crew roster had already been filled. She kept up with the *Phoenix’s* exploits with jealousy until she found that they had an opening for an assistant chief of operations, following the retirement of the previous one. This was perfect! Her new team leader experience could help her, and she would still be serving under someone else who could help her learn… The opportunity was too good to miss, and so she immediately applied.