Tenila was a female Tezwan, wife to Sangano, and mother to Neeraj.
During the initial nadion-pulse cannon attack on the orbiting Klingon Defense Force fleet and the Klingon planetary bombardment, Tenila's husband Sangano was killed. Tenila buried her husband in Savola-Cov, one of the trinae cities, sent their son Nerraj to live with family, and joined the newly formed planetary peace keeping forces, feeling a sense of duty after seeing the example of Starfleet.
When the peace keeping teams were trained by USS Enterprise-E Security Chief Christine Vale, Tenila was tapped to be a team leader due to her leadership skills. As such, she was part of several counter-insurgency efforts. When deposed Prime Minister Kinchawn launched his coup d'etat, Tenila's team was the only one not under attack, and was therefore the only personnel available to respond to the distress call of the runabout USS Tunguska. Though they arrived too late to aid the runabout's crew, they came across the recently escaped Commander William Riker and provided cover fire against loyalist insurgents until the Enterprise could respond to their communication. Tenila took a phaser blast to the chest, and was killed on the spot, but Riker insisted that she be beamed up with him.
Christine Vale later helped Neeraj carve Tenila's name in seshto onto the family memorial burial stone at their tava. (TNG novel: A Time to Heal)