Doctor Jarem Kaz was a joined Trill Starfleet officer.
As an unjoined Trill, Jarem had served as a medical officer on a Starfleet vessel, where he developed a vaccine for the deadly Lhaj Fever in his spare time. During the conflict with the Maquis, the Maquis Gradak Kaz, a joined Trill, was brought aboard Jarem's vessel, where he subsequently died. The symbiont Kaz was transplanted into Jarem - the only available unjoined Trill. Jarem was willing to take on the Kaz symbiont despite the risk of the symbiont rejecting the host. Fortunately for Jarem, the symbiosis held, and the newly joined Jarem Kaz continued to serve Starfleet.
In early 2378, he served as a medical doctor at Starfleet Command, assigned to Project Full Circle under Admiral Kenneth Montgomery. Project Full Circle was charged with the task of examining and removing the Borg and futuristic technology that had been used to modify USS Voyager during her seven year journey through the Delta Quadrant.
When Seven of Nine and Icheb were ordered arrested by Montgomery for suspicion of being involved with a Borg virus that was infecting Earth, Kaz examined the pair and quickly determined they were not involved with the plague. Despite this, Montgomery refused to allow the two former Borg to regenerate, putting their lives at risk.
Kaz contacted Admiral Kathryn Janeway, and the two of them conspired to remove Seven and Icheb (as well as The Doctor) from their confinement, and bring them aboard Voyager, where they could regenerate. Soon after, Kaz was instrumental in identifying the source of the Borg plague and finding a cure.
Having earned the trust of Janeway and her former crew, Kaz was offered the position of Chief Medical Officer aboard Voyager by the vessel's new captain, Chakotay. Kaz, who had become friends with Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay, happily accepted the offer.
Kaz became instrumental in helping the crew uncover the plot of the renegade Changeling who had taken on the appearance of the first officer, Commander Andrew Ellis, and Captain Chakotay himself. It was also during these events that the memories of Gradak Kaz began to stir. Gradak had lost his beloved wife when the Cardassians attacked the Maquis at their secret base on Tavlok's Moon and blamed the loss on the Cardassian scientist Crell Moset. As Voyager approached the region of space where these events took place, Gradak became more persistent and matters where finally settled when Jarem Kaz (controlled largely by Gradak) confronted Moset in his ruined lab and broke his spirit by making the scientist truly understand what he had done.
Jarem Kaz died in 2381, during the Borg invasion of that year. Kaz was aboard Voyager - the lead ship in a fleet of three hundred vessels assembled at the Azure Nebula - when a fleet of seven thousand Borg cubes emerged from a subspace tunnel. In the aftermath of the attack, Tom Paris lamented that, in Kaz, two lives had been lost.
Appearances
- VOY novel: Homecoming
- VOY novel: The Farther Shore
- VOY novel: Spirit Walk: Old Wounds
- VOY novel: Spirit Walk: Enemy of My Enemy
- VOY novel: Full Circle