Sergeant Taura of Dendarii Mercenaries started life as genetics experiment. She was developed as a super soldier on the planet of Jackson's Whole. She was the only eventual survivor of the experiment, that seems to have used some animal genes spliced into the human genome. In particular, she is "equipped" with fangs and claws. Taura suffers from a massively accelerated metabolism, giving her extremely fast reflexes and responses and very great st...
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Sergeant Taura of Dendarii Mercenaries started life as genetics experiment. She was developed as a super soldier on the planet of Jackson's Whole. She was the only eventual survivor of the experiment, that seems to have used some animal genes spliced into the human genome. In particular, she is "equipped" with fangs and claws. Taura suffers from a massively accelerated metabolism, giving her extremely fast reflexes and responses and very great strength, compounded with her 8-foot (2.4 m) height and matching mass. Unfortunately this accelerated metabolism will also sharply reduce her life time - something she is very much aware of. All attempts to find a medical way around this situation have (so far) had only marginal success. The last time she was seen in the series, in the novella Winterfair Gifts, she states that the doctors give her one more year to live, but also that they've said the same thing for the last four years. She is not concerned about it, deciding to live each day for its own sake.
Admiral Naismith of the Dendarii was supposed to kill her to save her suffering at the hands of her new owners and save her a painful death when her metabolism failed, however when he realised that she was a human being despite her looks, he switched his mission to rescue her, a "damsel in distress" instead. She then joined the Mercenaries as a (very successful) commando Squad Leader.
