Tar'lek Arys

Early Life

Tar’lek th’Arys was born on Andoria, deep in the heart of the Federation geographically and culturally. One of his grandfathers had served in the Federation Council, while his parents were artists and historians, scholars of Andorian and Federation culture and society. From a young age Tar’lek proved to be gifted and intelligent, but was an energetic child who chafed at the more cerebral environment of his upbringing.

Early in his education he befriended a young chan named Vyrek. Quieter and more thoughtful than the rambunctious Tar’lek, the two were quickly inseparable, with Vyrek worshipping Tar’lek and this approval only buoying him up. Youthful games turned to rebellious behaviour as the two grew older, with Tar’lek’s family at a loose end in how to discipline or redirect their son’s conduct. The more his family tried to punish him or force him to study, the more he acted out, encouraged by Vyrek’s blind loyalty.

This came to a head when the boys were thirteen, ice-climbing on the surface of Andoria. A warm season had made the ridge treacherous, the authorities issuing warnings to climb only with extreme caution, and Tar’lek ignored his family explicitly forbidding him to go. Reckless but not stupid, Tar’lek and Vyrek took a careful route on their climb, keeping to the shaded and cooler side of the slope, but disaster struck anyway. A section of the icy cliff-face sheared away, and while the higher and stronger Tar’lek kept his hold, Vyrek did not, and plummeted in a fatal fall.

The accident and its trauma transformed Tar’lek. He did not need to be chastised by his parents or the authorities to take responsibility, horrified by an accident he believed wholly his own fault. Even Vyrek’s family recognised that others had been climbing that day – that misfortune was as much to blame as misjudgement – but none of this reassured or comforted Tar’lek.

He became far more sober a youth. While he lacked enough artistic talent to follow his family’s footsteps in such a way, he became more studious and focused at school. Rather than withdraw entirely, he sought out and shouldered roles of responsibility among his peers, becoming seen as reliable and serious. At age sixteen, to the surprise of his parents, he announced he intended to join Starfleet, and left for the Academy when he was eighteen.

Starfleet Service

Cadet Tar’lek Arys thrived at the Academy. While he studied astrophysics and trained as a pilot, his path was plainly that of command. He became a member of Red Squad and was part of its competition-winning flight team, helped the squad win the Parrises Squares league in his junior year, and secured a coveted cadet flight on the USS Sirius where he directly aided the ship’s first officer.

He graduated high in his class, and his superiors decided to put him with a seasoned starship captain who could act as a mentor, hopeful that Arys might make his own command by the time he was thirty. They assigned him to the USS Endeavour as the captain’s yeoman, a bureaucratic position which put him at the commanding officer’s right hand. It was considered the optimal chance for a young ensign to observe command duties and decisions, and learn directly from a veteran officer.

Endeavour was commanded by Captain Leonidas MacCallister, a seasoned starship commander with almost two decades of experience, who immediately took young Arys under his wing and encouraged him to watch, listen, and get involved. He was given responsibilities beyond his immediate duties, often acting as the captain’s emissary or sitting in on important meetings to watch and learn. After eighteen months it was expected that MacCallister would put him forward for a promotion and a major senior staff posting.

A Changing Path

Disaster struck yet again, this time with a pirate attack on Endeavour that killed several of the senior staff and left Captain MacCallister too injured to stay aboard. The new commander of Endeavour, Matt Rourke, was a less-experienced officer with a more brusque and hands-on attitude charged with taking over a crisis-wracked starship to hunt down pirates, and had much less time to take the same nurturing approach to his yeoman.

Arys did as he was bidden despite his resentment, serving Rourke as ably and loyally as he had served MacCallister. This paid off when Endeavour was cast into a fresh crisis months later, losing several of its senior staff on critical operations on the Romulan border, and Rourke assigned him as acting leader of the ship’s Hazard Team. Arys pulled off one operation despite his inexperience, and served temporarily as the ship’s helmsman after the death of Chief Flight Control Officer Lieutenant Drake. At a time when many of Endeavour’s staff had been incapacitated or otherwise unable to perform their duties, the relatively green Arys had risen to the occasion.

This was noted primarily by ship’s XO Commander Valance, who had served aboard as long as he, and recognised his worth and his potential. It was at her recommendation that he was advanced to the rank of lieutenant junior grade, and with her encouragement that Captain Rourke appointed him permanently to the position of Chief Flight Control Officer.

While Arys is a capable and qualified pilot, he is not the hotshot flyer so many in his position tend to be. But he is an exceptionally competent leader and manager in a department that often draws difficult and ambitious young officers, and he is a level and reliable presence among the more junior of Endeavour’s senior staff and department heads. As Chief FCO, Arys is in a position to contribute to command decisions and learn from more experienced colleagues, while acting as a versatile, intelligent, and capable officer on the bridge or elsewhere in his own right.