Knight, Hailey

PRC	STAR FLEET PERSONNEL COMMAND FILE  SECURITY RATING 3, CONFIDENTIAL

RETIRED
Hailey Sasha Knight
Career Occupation
Position:	Medical Officer
Assignment:	USS Yeager, FSC-28018
Rank:	Ensign
Biographical Attributes
Species:	Human
Gender:	Female
Height:	1.55m	Weight:	55kg
Eye Color:	Hazel Brown
Hair Color:	Under the Earth sun, dark chocolate with hints of cocoa; under artificial Starfleet lights, some of the life seems to go out of her locks, leaving them merely 'dark brown'.
Hairstyle:	Her hair is naturally wavy when grown long, and she sometimes colours it with tints and hues. On duty, she tends to wear it in a high ponytail.
Physique:	Slim, toned. Despite years of specialist medical education having given her less opportunity to stay in shape than she had as an undergraduate, Hailey has managed to retain an athletic figure, primarily through enjoyment of an old Earth exercise discipline known as yoga.
Complexion:	Hailey's light bronze skin tone reflects ancestry that includes Eurasian, South Asian, Latin American, Lunar and Martian forebears – and a healthy appreciation for the Californian beaches where she was a regular fixture during her Academy days.
Voice:	Slightly huskier than expected for a woman of her petite stature. She has a clear mezzo-soprano singing voice, which her Starfleet colleagues rarely get to hear.
Affiliation:	United Federation of Planets
Birthplace:	Benecia Colony, Benecia
Born:	18502.20	Age:	28
Familial Relationships
Father:	Roberto Carlos Menendez
Mother:	Ashlee Knight
Status of Parents:	Her mother currently lives in Tycho City, where she works as an administrator at a museum of space history. Her father is a civilian engineering systems contractor at the Beta Anteres Ship Yards, where he lives with his wife and daughter, Hailey's half-sister.
Siblings:	Half-sister, Lauren (21)
Marital Status:	According to her official information file, single; but ask her in person and you'll get the answer, “It's complicated.” She had one failed engagement in her undergraduate days, and in the more recent past has had to contend with a poorly defined, on-again, off-again relationship with a fellow medical student. The demands of their studies meant they never quite got it together, and neither had much taste for continuing things on a long distance basis after graduating, meaning they are probably finished – but then, they've both said that before.
Children:	None

Personal History

Hailey was born on a fairly remote colony and was raised by her mother. The two moved several times as her mother sought work and better opportunities. Those early days are filled with mostly happy memories for Hailey: sitting around in a kitchen on Cygnia Minor so basic it didn't even have replicator technology; putting on plays with an ever-changing cast of friends as their families constantly arrived and moved on from the Argelius II spaceport; and sorting the wide variety of animals she encountered on Altair IV between potential pets, potential food, and potential it's coming right for us! Her first visit to Earth came when she was 10, and included a trip to San Francisco, where she became enchanted with the Starfleet life for the first time: the young cadets there were so different from the few disenchanted career officers she had encountered in the colonies. She also saw their pride in their academic achievements, which helped her start to take pride in her own; having been singled out as 'the brainy one' throughout her childhood, she had hitherto regarded her prowess in school as a distinctly mixed blessing.

Her mother took a job on Lunar Colony and decided to settle there permanently. Hailey had trouble fitting in initially: she regarded Tycho City as a boring, mundane, grey answer to the excitement and vibrancy of some of the colonies she'd seen, while many of the Lunar children saw her as a backwater hick with 'frontier cooties'. After a difficult adjustment period she threw herself into her studies, and began to make friends. Inevitably, her teenage years brought a few bumps, from experiments with hair colour to a threat to “run away to the Delta Quadrant” that ended before she'd got past Mars. Nonetheless, her academic proficiency was obvious, and her excellence in the sciences led to her seriously considering a Starfleet career, the first person in her family to do so. Her mother encouraged her to take the civilian route, but she had her heart set on San Francisco. Eventually her mother made her peace with the decision, and Hailey only survived the stress of the entrance examinations thanks to her mother's support.

By contrast, she had had almost no contact with her father throughout her childhood, first meeting him when she was 18. She had expected the man who had abandoned her mother before she was born to be an irresponsible waster, and was slightly surprised to find him a married family man, with a daughter – her half-sister, Lauren. It was Lauren's presence that eased what had been a frosty reunion, the two girls becoming fast friends, and while Hailey has had only sporadic contact with her father since then, limited to occasional subspace letters and a graduation present erroneously sent a year early, she remains in good contact with her sister, showing her around San Francisco when she came to visit. The realization that her father had been unprepared for family life at a young age, but had managed to settle down later on, has affected her more than she would care to admit, and in combination with seeing how successfully her strong willed, independent mother raised her has perhaps contributed to her unwillingness to commit to a serious relationship.

Accepted to the Academy, Hailey found herself placed in quarters with a quiet, shy, but undoubtedly brilliant girl named Naoko Shigematsu. The two became fast friends, while Hailey revelled in San Francisco's social scene. But she quickly found that she had gone from being the cleverest girl in the class on every colony world she'd known, to very much a little fish in a big pond. Her grades were not good, she was surrounded by soaring intellects with records of achievement that put her Lunar Science Prize in the shade, and her resolve briefly faltered, threatening to crash out in her second year. Her determination to improve her grades enough to be able to pursue her dream of being a doctor came at the price of damaging irreparably her relationship with her boyfriend, while post-breakup her irresponsible partying almost led to her undoing all her good work. Throughout her Academy days, maintaining a healthy work-life balance proved a challenge for Hailey, constantly veering one side or the other.

Though not an outstanding candidate, with Naoko's help she just managed to gain solid enough grades to continue her studies at Starfleet Medical Academy, beginning a new, six year chapter of her life. If she had been worried about sliding to the middle of the pack before, now she recognised she was going to have to work much harder just to avoid total failure, although she and the other last placed students ended up forming an informal 'Not-Quite-Honours Club' of their own to celebrate their dubious achievements. Distinct tendencies began to emerge that sometimes set her at odds with her instructors: above all, to their immense irritation, she seemed inordinately interested in the patients, rather than the underlying science. "Why are you wasting time listening to them when you should be carving them up?" was a common complaint from the surgical faculty. Although a few at least gave her credit for her willingness to engage with her patients, others felt she was not aggressive enough in pushing optimal treatment options and that her decision making lacked assertiveness.

As the time came to choose specialties, she found herself moving towards psychiatry, having genuinely enjoyed her rotations in the discipline, gained good evaluations, and even being sought out for advice by the same students she was quizzing and cribbing in most other classes. She also enjoyed the dynamic allowed within psychiatry of spending longer periods of time with patients, compared to the “treat 'em and street 'em” mentality prevailing in surgery or internal medicine. She was also recruited by the paediatrics specialty, where she had gained high marks on her rotation; however, despite her ability to communicate well, she found dealing with critically ill children difficult to deal with, and decided against this path. Never a serious candidate for high honours, she entered her final year concentrating solely on scraping her grades up to a passing level, and then on throwing herself wholeheartedly into the psychiatry electives, including an extending period working at a rehabilitation facility for Starfleet personnel dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and pain-related depression, a challenging but ultimately rewarding experience. Sociable and friendly, she was mostly popular during her Academy years, aside from the usual interdisciplinary rivalries that saw her put down as a “headshrinker” (by the people she was happy to label “laser scalpel jockeys”). Her disciplinary record was spotty, although punctuality and adherence to uniform regulations proved bigger issues than outright misconduct.

Personality Profile

Academy Major(s): Psychiatric Medicine
Academy Minor(s): Gender Studies
Hobbies and Pastimes: Music, both singing and listening; yoga and working out; dancing; hiking; philosophy and meditation. She wrote a small life and style column for a student magazine while at the Academy. She is a vegetarian.
Short-Term Goals: Despite having left the Academy with less than stellar evaluations from her instructors, Hailey wants to do the best possible job for her patients in future. The first time she can say she has truly made a difference in someone's life will be deeply satisfying, but then, she expects the second will be pretty good too, and the third...She also wants to keep open the option of pursuing further psychiatric study alongside her general medical duties. Before leaving for her post-Academy assignment she plans to meet up with her mother and let her know she could have achieved none of this without her support.
Long-Term Goals: Hailey doesn't have any particular ambitions for rank or advancement, but she does want to pursue a long term career in medicine, and sees herself as likely to end up specialising in psychiatry. She wants to be involved in long-term patient care: it might not concern a surgeon how the knee he operated on twenty years ago is today, but she doesn't forget her patients so easily. She wants to stay in touch with as many of her Academy friends as possible; at the same time, she wants to travel and not limit herself to just one little corner of space. Her thoughts about starting a family of her own are much less clearly defined.
Personality: Hailey is warm, friendly and open. She's a good listener, able to make light of most situations, and considers herself trustworthy. Some people find her sugar-sweet disposition and 'touchy-feely' attitude a little sickly and worry she's insincere; others don't think she takes her duties as a prospective Starfleet officer and doctor seriously enough. At the same time, while a student she prided herself on being able to make friends across the spectrum of social cliques, one moment cheering on the parrises squares jocks, the next encouraging her friend's holonovel writing efforts, and still finding time to seek out a little underground club where they played the latest in Andorian jazz.
Sense of Humor: Hailey tends towards slight flippancy, which has occasionally landed her in trouble for disrespect towards senior officers. She doesn't have much taste for very dark or risqué humour or jokes at others' expense; but she is able to take a joke about herself, and sometimes has trouble with dead dry types unable to crack a smile at all.
Phobias: She has a fear of heights, though she's worked to get it under control and doesn't consider herself phobic.
Likes: : Coffee, helping people, exotic flora and fauna, setting personal bests in workouts, making new friends.
Dislikes: Being alone for long periods of time, arrogant behaviour, clannishness and cliques, cruelty to animals.
Pet Peeves or Gripes: : She dislikes behaviour she considers overly officious or obsessed with regulations at the expense of doing the right thing. She is a slight snob when it comes to replicated food, claiming that home cooked always tastes better; her friends are doubtful she can truly tell the difference.
Bad Habits or Vices: She is prone to being forgetful and disorganized. A recurring theme of her Academy days was spending slightly too much time having fun, and not enough studying; it remains to be seen whether this will be remedied in her service career. She frequently sings under her breath without realizing it. Most damningly of all, she cracks her knuckles
Achievements: : She prioritises her own achievements differently than some might: for example, the day she spent hours successfully convincing one of her closest friends to enter rehab for a drug problem, she missed three exams and failed one mandatory physical; she is proud of obtaining her Level 1 pilot qualification precisely because she failed her first three attempts; and her low, but passing, grades in mathematics give her more pleasure than her high grades in biology as she think it reflects the hard work she put in better. She's not very competitive: despite her excellent fitness, she's more interested in improving on her personal bests than in trying to beat others in a contest. A particular personal achievement is her logbook of new species she's encountered, which she's been keeping meticulously since childhood, and currently numbers in the thousands.
Disappointments: Looking back over her less than smooth academic career, she's inclined to wonder whether had she worked harder at the beginning, things might have been easier towards the end. She regrets not pushing herself harder: a couple of optional assignments she missed out on because she was too busy catching up with regular work, for example. And like many doctors, the memory of the first patient she was unable to help lives with her, a crush injury victim for whom she could no more than hold his hand as engineers ultimately failed to transport him to safety before he expired.
Illnesses: Physically, she has always been healthy, but as a young girl she was diagnosed with ADHD. She managed to wean herself off the medication as a teenager, occasionally going back onto it during times of stress at the Academy, but she believes she has mostly managed to come to terms with and control it.
Strengths: A capable and resourceful young woman, Hailey has good control of her emotions, tending not to panic, and communicates well with others, usually finding a way of making a connection. She's bright and easy to like. When it can be coaxed out of her, she has a rare talent for singing, a bright summer song some sunny morning, or a low, plaintive tune of the night's moon.
Weaknesses: She will never be the most adept or skilled physician in Starfleet, lacking the diligence, attention to detail and clinical focus necessary to excel in the field. She can be overly chatty and easily distracted. For a healer, she is strikingly poor at caring for her plants, having killed almost every one she has ever tried to raise. She also believes that she makes the best breakfast eggs ever; in fact, they are most inedible, but no one has ever had the heart to tell her.
Fears: She is genuinely afraid of letting her patients down, to the point where she can second guess herself or become indecisive. She worries about losing touch with too many friends over the expanses of space and the inevitable tension of career advancement. She tends to get nervous and fretful before evaluations, examinations, and tests. More prosaically, she's never been keen on heights.
Prejudices: She has a slight chip on her shoulder about 'Starfleet families'. As the first person in her family to enter Starfleet, she sometimes gets the impression, rightly or wrongly, that those with parents and other family members in the service are more likely to gain admission to the Academy, to get choice assignments, or to receive preferential treatment. Equally, she is fiercely defensive of colonial life, to the point where she sometimes goes too far and starts to look down herself on those who've never ventured off Earth. She also has a very strong belief that protracted use of holosims is unhealthy, and tends to turn her nose up at people whose only social activities are photonically generated.
Off Duty Clothing Tastes: Eclectic. Enjoys a retro style inspired by the late 21st century boho popular after World War III, but equally likely to pick out something from the hottest Risan brochures. She has a particular delight for decorating her nails, with a small vial of a special varnish whose chameleon plant extract changes their colour according to her mood numbering among her most prized possessions.
Distinguishing Features: Prominent cheekbones, slightly dimpled chin. She has a small tattoo of a Mordian butterfly on her hip, but this is usually obscured from view by her clothing; she removed another tattoo, a relic of teenage indiscretions, the moment she learned how to use a dermal regenerator. When allowed, she wears a navel piercing.
Pets: She had numerous childhood pets, including her first ever 'patient', Persephone the stray cat, whom she cared for during her pregnancy (and, shortly thereafter, her recovery from being neutered). Two of her pets still live with her mother on Luna, an Earth tortoise named Speedy Gonzalez and a Rigellian parrot named Squark.
Friends: Naoko Shigematsu. Friends from day one of the Academy, when they were assigned the same quarters, Hailey's friendship with Naoko has lasted ten years and survived everything from academic rivalries and ethical disputes, to fights over boys and arguments about whose turn it is to water the Edosian orchids. Never in Naoko's league when it came to academic affairs, Hailey probably only got through her first year thanks to her friend's help; but she also knows that she has played her part in helping her once solitary, insular friend express herself socially and gain more confidence. As their specialties diverged in their final years they spent less time with each other academically, but it was always comforting to share a coffee and vetch about instructors in the evening. With Naoko staying on at the Academy to pursue a teaching position, and Hailey leaving Earth to serve aboard a starship, the two came to realize they would be separated but made plans to stay in touch by subspace communications. “And we'll always have New Paris,” is a sentiment liable to send both girls into fits of laughter.

Personal Paradigm Shifts

Most Painful Experience: The death of her first pet, a cat named Persephone. She'd found 'Seph' as a street kitten on Benecia Colony and after much arguing had been allowed to keep her; her mother, who had initially wanted to get rid of the flea-ridden stray, ended up helping her smuggle her through biofilters when they relocated to Tracken II. Hailey raised Seph by hand, saw her give birth to a litter of kittens, and took her everywhere. But while on a transport freighter on route to a new home when her mother got an office job with a dilithium mining concern, Seph became ill. The freighter lacked medical equipment, especially to be used on cats, and 8 year old Hailey had to watch her best friend waste away and eventually die. For all that she has subsequently seen patients, children, even friends, suffer illness, injury, death, that original trauma is one she often returns to when she tries to recall where her caring instinct comes from.
Best Time: At the end of her second year of medical school, she and three friends had managed to save up enough leave for a trip to Risa. But while many Academy students came back full of tales of misadventure from the notorious pleasure planet, Hailey and her group never actually made it; their transport experienced difficulties on route and had to emergency land on a remote jungle planet. Though there were no injuries and no real danger, surviving together for three weeks before a Starfleet deep space vessel could rescue them was in a way a learning, growing experience that far surpassed any hedonistic booze-up – which doesn't mean she doesn't one day want to see the Festival of the Moon for herself, of course.
Most Crucial Experience: While on her rotation in the intensive care unit, she became involved in the treatment of a young woman with extensive burn injuries. Talking with the patient, she came to learn the fire that had caused them had been started deliberately, the woman burning down her apartment as a result of suicidal depression following deep seated emotional trauma. It was something none of the specialists treating her had bothered to learn, and Hailey's involvement in the woman's ongoing care made her realize that there were wounds that required more the flip of a tricorder and some shot from a hypospray to treat – and that perhaps her calling was to help with such.
Role Model: Her mother. It's not something Ashlee herself would want to hear, always putting herself down as 'just an office drone' and encouraging her daughter to aim much higher with her career aspirations. But her unwavering support through two decades of education has been truly inspirational to Hailey, and she knows she doesn't yet possess half the self-confidence or spirit that her mother did at 18.

Career History

Stardate 21306.13 - Graduated Star Fleet Academy, Medical.
Stardate 21306.16 - Assigned USS Yeager, SC-8018, Medical.
Stardate 21308.01 - Awarded RPGer of the Month, USS Yeager, SC-8108.
Stardate 21308.11 - Assigned as Medical Officer, USS Yeager, FSC-28018.
Stardate 21309.01 - Promoted to Ensign, USS Yeager, FSC-28018.

Contact Information

E-Mail: meggy_meow@yahoo.co.uk

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