Jita Kejal

Name: Jita Kejal
Species: Bajoran
Gender: Female
Age/Date of Birth: 22/November 2, 2268
Position: Operations Officer

Physical Description: Kejal stands on the low side of average height for a humanoid female (1.65 m) and sports a petite, wiry frame (50 kg) sculpted by years of handball play. She’s quick and scrappy rather than outright strong in physical pursuits, a seeming validation of the tenacity associated with Bajorans from their resistance efforts. Slightly coarse for its length, her earthy-hued hair is otherwise malleable enough to gather into a single braid, her characteristic hairstyle so to speak. A slightly more distinguishing element is that she doesn’t don the Bajoran earring, at least not in contemporary fashion. Sentiment has compelled her to forge a pendant out of her mother’s that she wears discreetly.

Personality Traits: Because she spent all of her life away from Bajor, Kejal isn’t as hard-nosed or rough-hewn as some of her compatriots. A largely undiscriminating soul with a wry sense of humor, her innate desire to understand her environment has also instilled in her a keen sense of observation that forms the general foundation of her intelligence. She’s just begun to cultivate its potential for gathering meaningful insights on people, yet has plenty of practice using it to analyze a system for patterns she then discerns the governance of. Far from genius-level, it in conjunction with her grit allows her to operate in relative autonomy in dealing with all but the most abstract issues.

That’s not to say she can’t function in a cooperative environment. Well-grounded and level-headed, one of her innate beliefs is treating others equitably until given a reason otherwise. The means by which to do so are generally the sort others would also react negatively toward. Willful ignorance or arrogance are her surest turn-offs, though her work ethic and conviction in her abilities can also clash with micromanaging. Her most glaring weaknesses may lie in those very same attributes; she can become tetchy when she feels she’s being snubbed, an instance of which inspired her to upgrade her enlistment to a commission. And her recall isn’t the best match to her insight-heavy processing. She’s worked on it since it threatened to derail her services academy run, but is still prone to occasional bouts of absent-mindedness. A semantic detail escaping the framework of an otherwise shrewd discernment is one of the most common examples, hence her taking marginally longer than average to complete a task. Able to execute as quickly as anyone, Kejal tacks extra time onto the back-end for scrutinizing out such errors. Should she fail that or just about any other undertaking, there’s no tougher critic. Erring toward isolation and self-effacing jokes are the signs of her self-administered discipline.

More than capable of amiability to the point of gregariousness, she nonetheless denies others deep glimpses into who she really is. Partly because she’s still sorting that out herself, her adoptive home and family are subjects she has few qualms about discussing. Tremendously proud and accepting of both, it’s her indigenous origins she’s uncertain about and thus reluctant to make conversation of. The Bajoran religion is a subject of particular distaste for her. Her exposure to other race’s religious histories among other things have inclined her to view it very skeptically, particularly in light of recent developments. Yet she’s hesitant to scorn it given its embedment into the psyche of her people at large.

History: Kejal’s parents were sentenced to an off-world labor camp in conjunction with her grandfather’s suspected involvement in the 2366 Musilla Province bombings, seemingly dooming her to penal servitude from birth. They wouldn’t do a lick of time; a ranking minority within the transport’s crew believed the Union on the path to ruin and attempted a defection ploy in which they dumped potential detractors on the pretense of a critical systems failure. Kejal’s refuge in Federation space came of it, albeit only after a Cardassian cruiser unraveled the ruse short of them crossing the border. Her father perished in the subsequent attack, and while her mother was among the motley handful of survivors the patrolling USS Jan Sobieski beamed from the doomed transport, her injuries and birthing Kejal under such catastrophic circumstances ultimately extinguished her life as well.

Lieutenant Commander Anemone Womack, Sobieski’s second officer, didn’t have children in her retirement plans. Yet her commitment to that resolution held as poorly as her professed disinclination for marriage. The circumstances responsible for what the child might endure in state custody affected her more than her colleagues thought possible. So they were astonished when she applied for temporary guardianship and following the confirmation that Kejal had no available next of kin in Federation space, successfully petitioned to adopt her.

Despite Anemone’s concern that she wasn’t mother material in the conventional sense, a sound family unit emerged in the following years even as the adults focused on their fledgling private craft-building business. In fact her strength of character won Kejal’s respect, and learning that she was who pursued her adoption helped guard the Bajoran’s perception against the shortcomings Anemone perceived of her parenting. Kejal also got along with Anemone’s husband, who provided both a fantastic support system, but it was evident that she cultivated a special bond with her adoptive mother.

Nonetheless the girl couldn’t help harboring curiosity about her origins, something Bajor’s deepening Federation ties in the post-Dominion War years appeared poised to assist. Unfortunately the Cardassians’ spiteful sabotage of Bajoran record-keeping during their withdrawal and Kejal’s utter lack of affiliation with her ancestral home through any other ties stirred up many more questions than answers. Uncomfortably snarled, she instead looked to the future and chose Starfleet as the means to get there. She picked the enlisted track instead of utilizing her mother’s connections to attempt securing an academy slot however, not wanting the commitment or better yet, the attention it demanded.

Kejal did well in the aptitude testing and general training, only to be taken for a ride by the degree of the abstract thinking required by the specialization she chose, sensor data analysis. Lured by its versatility, it didn’t come naturally to her beyond basic applications, leaving her to slog where her classmates skated. She graduated with her class, yet the young Bajoran’s struggle with consistent proficiency led her to think herself passed out of sympathy rather than confidence in her abilities, particularly since she lacked the seasoning older Bajorans obtained through time spent in the militia or resistance cells. Still she accepted her stellar cartography posting to the Intrepid-class Daniel Boone in 2386 hoping the advice colleagues, superiors, and even her adoptive parents lent, that she simply needed time to ‘grow into it,’ proved true.

Her greatest challenge actually proved to be coping with the chain of command. Her proclivity for mutual respect clashed when the executive officer brushed off her suggested measures during a survey mission, and the lone factor she could figure for it was that she was an enlistee. Otherwise content with her decision to join Starfleet, she successfully applied for officer candidate training near the end of her original service contract. Kejal remained aboard the Boone for it despite a lingering dislike for the executive officer on the tide of earning several advocates such as her department head and commanding officer, that she felt vested enough in to remain aboard after graduating.

Fate instead took her off the Boone through those very same relationships. A ferry mission gone completely awry compelled the captain’s resignation from Starfleet, resulting in the executive officer’s succession. Several of Kejal’s other friends and supporters were subsequently reassigned, which might provoke the induction that she requested the same so as to not fall under her former executive officer’s purview. It was more complex than that in truth; the extensive changes made what had become another home distractingly foreign and inclined her to seek change. Consequently reassigned to the Portland as an operations officer, she continues her pursuit of the same sense of acceptance and purpose her adoptive mother attributes to her tenure in Starfleet.