We met her in The Empath. "Gem" is what McCoy dubs her, but we don't actually know what her name is. This mute woman from one of the planets in the Minaran star system was selected by the Vians and tested - with torturous experiments - to decide if her race would be spared by them from an impending nova.
Yes, she got tortured. She was in captivity, and the only free choice she was offered was to accept other people's injury and pain, or to just stand idly by watching others get tortured with injury and pain. Even if the Vians never directly tortured her physically, they certainly tortured her psychologically - but as a matter of fact, she did endure a great deal of physical pain too, and all because of her own virtues.
Got that? She was an innocent person who had been kidnapped and forced into these sick experiments against her will, and the fate of her entire race was in the hands of her psychotic captors. If she failed, her whole race would die, but they hadn't told her that. They wanted to keep the experiment "pure" by not offering the lives of her own people as a motive.
Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy were captured, and Kirk and McCoy were subjected to torture while Gem watched. She then healed them, using a remarkable method: she would empathize with them so completely that she could absorb their pain and symptoms. This meant that, temporarily at least, she suffered from their injuries just like they did.
She showed tremendous selfless compassion and courage to do this, especially for a group of strangers. The only free choice Gem ever had was over whether or not to help the tortured men with her special power, and she always did. She never once failed to do so.
The Vians observed Gem, and wondered whether Gem learned the sense of compassion and sacrifice from watching Kirk and his men. That's idiotic. Gem never seemed to need to learn anything new in that area. Gem was even willing to give her life (by empathizing) to save Dr. McCoy from his fatal injuries. She did not learn that from watching the guys. Nobody could do that but her, so nobody could presume to teach her anything about it.
The Vian scientists eventually got it through their thick skulls that Gem's civilization should the one to be saved from extinction. At the end, Kirk, Spock and McCoy were set free, but Gem? We don't even know for sure that poor Gem lives.
In any case, she is a noble soul and a great lady: the savior of our guys and of her whole race. That makes her a heroine in my book.
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