Deriel Gant

Deriel Purtas dreamed of the stars from an early age, and unlike two hundred years prior it was now feasible for Trill to escape their home planet and travel to the stars rather than merely looking up at them. Upon being joined in 2342 Deriel Gant grabbed the first opportunity available, seeking training in warp theory in Starfleet's army of enlisted officers and attaining the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer.

Deriel worked on the team headed by the indomitable Dr Leah Brahms on warp geometry calculations which would later form the basis for the warp drive of the Galaxy- and Nebula-class starships. Reports indicate that her work was above-average but not exemplary, and that she was studious but lacked ambition. She at times expressed a wish to join Starfleet's officer corps, but was never able to follow through; she claimed fate always seemed to intervene, but her coworkers indicated the problem was merely a lack of willingness to make the push to join Starfleet Academy.

Deriel was sadly shortlived; in 2377 while working on the warp drive of the Danube-class runabout USS Amazon NCC-4239 a power relay failed and amounts of energy vastly exceeding tolerance were pumped into a circuit overhead. Deriel and three other technicians were showered in delta-band radiation; Deriel and the two humans succumbed relatively quickly, but the more resilient Bolian was able to sound the alarm before collapsing into unconsciousness. (Trill have a much larger surface area to their brain due to the presence of the isoboramine pathways connecting the symbiont to the host, and as such are vastly more susceptible to certain forms of delta-band radiation.)

Thankfully, though the host fell into a coma, the Gant symbiont was unharmed since the delta-band emissions originated above Deriel and thus were mostly absorbed by her head rather than her abdominal tissues. She was transported with all speed back to Trill where the doctors chemically induced separation, and the symbiont made its way to the next host in the time-honoured tradition. She was succeeded by a husband and a single daughter, also named Deriel.