Arrenhe ir-Kihai t’Khev
Romulan Female

Place of Origin: ch’Rihan (Romulus)

1.65m (5’5″)
52kg (115 lb)
Age: 113
Hair – dark brown
Eyes – light hazel

Though slim, wiry, and short for a Romulan, there is something about Arrenhe that makes her seem large. Some of it may be the bearing that comes of decades of service in the Galae, particularly in a role that carried so much responsibility for security.  Some of it may be walls that role required, reinforced by surviving the destruction of family, homeworld, and Empire.  Or it could be innate attitude and the kind of penetrating stare that has made generations of junior officers quickly rethink what they were about to do or say.

Arrenhe’s name means ‘skilled’ and she takes some pride in living up to it. A carefully cultivated professional mask may cause her to come across as stern, particularly to non-Romulans, but like most of her race she is creature of contradictions and behind that mask is a wicked, salty sense of humor. Her ruling Element is Water, and like that element she can be warm and buoyant, or ice cold; fluidly adapt to conform to what’s around her, or as hard and unyielding as an iceberg. Depending on circumstances, she can hit like a tidal wave or overwhelm like a flood, though these were expressions more common in her youth. Over the years she has become more prone following Water’s way of wearing away at barriers by slow patient erosion.

Strengths/weaknesses:

+ Acute hearing even for a vulcanoid
+ Talent for languages, as well as identifying patterns in codes
+ Trained since childhood in several martial arts, including elements of Klingon and Federation styles of combat
+ Stoic, loyal (once she decides loyalty has been earned)
+/- Slow to trust and given to a habits of secrecy (even by Romulan standards)
– Torn between a certain loyalty to the Old Order and ideal of the RSE, and deep anger toward those who sold out her people for their own safety and political gain (this also includes certain members of the Federation Council)
– The survivor’s guilt typical of most Romulans now
– Tendency to hold grudges. Very firmly.

Hobbies:  Puzzles and music. She plays the eolh iarr’voi (a compact reeded wind instrument) and the ryill (a string instrument related to the Vulcan harp), and while serving with Federation forces during the Dominion War, she picked up a fondness for human country and blues-style music.  She is also adept at khariat (the Romulan version of kal-toh) and Lhi, a game of wits and riddles.
She also takes a certain not-at-all-guilty pleasure in seeing and/or causing something unpleasant to happen to people who (in her opinion) deserve it.

Arrenhe’s family came from Kihai on the southern continent of ch’Rihan (Romulus), part of an ancient clan that while not noble held a venerable history from the time of The Sundering that meant an assured place if she qualified for officer rank in the Galae. This was a path taken by most of her family. Her parents met while serving on a warbird, and because Romulans don’t do anything as inane as carrying children on war ships, her early years were spent in the care of her grandparents, themselves retired Galae officers. When she reached the age to apply to the Academy, there was no question but that she would follow the same path. Aural acuity coupled with a talent for languages, and more importantly one for picking out patterns that made her adept at handling code, would likely have placed her as a comms officer even without the family connection. Her family history did help with her first assignment, however, in that her grandparents had coached her well for the Tal’Shiar ‘interview’ required of an officer responsible for overseeing ship communications.

Though born in later half of the 23rd century when the Romulan Star empire had begun to emerge from isolation to engage (more directly) in galactic affairs, she had barely begun her service when the Tomed Incident resulted in the RSE (officially) returning to a policy of isolation.  However, hostilities with the Klingons continued, often turning to armed conflict. Her first ship, the IRW Vorin was badly damaged in one such exchange and Arrenhe suffered serious burns from a nearby console exploding. Receiving a commendation for remaining at her post despite the injury, she was promoted and assigned to IRW Torva. It was there that she met, Terrhn, a security officer who, once their families agreed, became her husband. A few years later, Command gave approval for them to start a family and over the next 15 years they had two daughters and a son – all dutifully delivered to home to ch’Rihan to be raised by extended her family.  

Over the fifty years since Tomed, conflicts with the Federation had been limited to occasional trespass near the Neutral Zone, but in 2364 several Romulan outposts and colonies were mysteriously destroyed. Recalling her grandparents stories of the first Romulan-Federation War, like most Romulans, Arrenhe assumed Federation attacks and began updating her knowledge of Federation languages and codes even as her warbird warped toward the Neutral Zone. However, they arrived to find the Federation had suffered similar attacks. It was much later discovered that the outposts had been destroyed by the Borg, but in the interim the RSE became more involved in galactic affairs, leading to a number of conflicts with the Federation over the next ten years, though many of these were driven (from the RSE pov) by the need to disrupt the emerging threat from a potential alliance between the Klingons and the Federation. And with these Arrenhe’s study of these aliens expanded, seeking new insights to break their codes and elevate approaches to her superiors to make the Empire’s more difficult for Starfleeters to decipher.

Ironically, this meant that when the RSE entered the Dominion War she was recognized as someone who understood their modes of communication and therefore an excellent candidate to serve as liaison at Starbase 257. It was an unhappy appointment. Not long after she arrived, SB257 was attacked by Jem’Hadar and she found herself fighting side-by-side with Starfleeters to repeal them. Despite herself, she couldn’t help a grudging respect by their courage and resilience – especially the slower weaker species, like humans. She still thought the human saying that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ was profoundly stupid, but she did begin to regard them more as worthy allies (even if temporary ones).

But what she gained in wider galactic perspective was in no way worth the terrible losses – Terrhn had remained on their ship and was killed in the Second Battle of Chin’toka, as was their eldest daughter. Her brother and sister were both lost in the final assault on Cardassia Prime.

The end of war left little time to grieve or rebuild before unrest roiled the RSE, ultimately leading to the Reman Rebellion. For once, Arrenhe was glad to have no connections to the noble Houses as the purge that began with mass assassination in the Senate spread through the capital and into the provinces. It meant she had no concern except for the Empire when her ship joined Commander Donatra’s fleet to take Shinzon down.

While she took part in the official planting of flags to remember those lost, Arrenhe did not greatly mourn the fallen Senators. Shinzon’s Reman shock troops had served well in the war, but who had thought it a good idea to give such a command to an alien? (Had no one learned from the idiocy of granting a General’s half-breed high rank and letting her keep it despite failing more times than any plebeian full-blooded Romulan would have survived?) What she did mourn was the stability that was lost with the majority of Senate, leaving only a few surviving aides and a host of heirs with fledgling skills. Perhaps if they hadn’t all been so preoccupied with infighting, securing power, and avoiding another coup, they might have taken action so Hobus would not have been as devastating.

Arrenhe’s ship had been patrolling the Klingon border when the news came – the supernova had destroyed the heart of the Empire, and wiped away her family, including her youngest, who had been expecting her first child. Only her son had been outside the zone of destruction, but his warbird was last recorded heading to aide refugees and then lost without trace.

The years that followed were chaos – the survivors uniting initially only because the Klingons chose to take advantage to try to take Romulan border worlds. The Federation tried to step in and render aid and intervention, but their good intentions felt more like an insult and further loss – a mark of shame that they were seen as so weak. Worse, they imagined the Romulans wanted mediation to end the conflict when what they wanted was blood! And if they couldn’t have blood of those who’d betrayed them, then the blood of Klingon invaders would do. That was certainly the case for Arrenhe, battle providing both outlet for rage and focus to bury devastating loss.

But eventually the ‘do-gooders’ had their way, even if it was mostly the Gorn striking the Klingons from the other border where their fleet was thinned that ended it. And with the threat of attack from outside powers abating, internal rifts came to the fore. A number of factions broke away, forming their own states, but two powers emerged as the dominant remnants of the Empire, the largest and strongest of which was the Romulan Free State. It was the Free State where Arrenhe and the last of her crewmates pledged service in a renewed Galae. There was much to be done and far more than Romulan factions to deal with. Over the next decade her experience and skills proved valuable in securing and expanding RFS borders, and she was increasingly called upon to train and mentor younger officers.

Then she received orders for a new assignment. On a Federation ship, the USS Britannia.

Service History:
IRW Vorin (2310 – 2318)
IRW Torva (2318 – 2338)
IRW Serris (2338 – 2358)
IRW Darvan (2358 – 2373)
Starbase 257 (2374-2375)  
IRW Varik  (2376 – 2389)  
FSW Kimara (2389 – 2398)
USS Britannia (2398 – present)