Khaiell was a loyal citizen of the Romulan Star Empire, but the Hobus incident changed all that. He has been very circumspect about sharing details of his thought process. After the destruction of Romulus, though, he very quickly aligned himself to D'Tan's movement. When given the opportunity to choose whether to align with the United Federation of Planets or the Klingon Empire, Khaiell chose the Klingons, thinking them a more expedient path to retribution against the Tal'Shiar and remaining elements of the Romulan Empire - though still he is silent about his motivations for wanting that.
After the Hobus Supernova destroyed Romulus, locative surnames no longer had any real meaning. Survivors still used them, of course, and often still referencing cities and provinces on the homeworld, to denote family lineage and remain tied to tradition. When the whole of reality was torn to shreds, sometimes it helped to cling to what you remembered - a time when things were less chaotic - to trick the mind into believing things weren't as different as it might otherwise believe.
Khaiell tr'Rhaikh i-Leinarrh wasn't from Leinarrh, he was from a Romulan colony called Fvaeillhr. He had, in fact, never set foot on the homeworld and didn't really miss it. His parents had recorded his full name in the Imperial Census Archive when he was born, though, so now that was officially his full name.
Khaiell was an engineer. He'd gotten employment repairing spacecraft and shuttles in Fvaeillhr's largest spaceport and did quite well. His parents were gone, he had no siblings, and he was very much a loner. His work kept him isolated, though he regularly met his few friends to enjoy the city nightlife every week or two. Life was routine.
Until people started disappearing. Initially it was reported in news streams as a peculiarity, and then some serial criminal. As the disappearances grew in number, all sorts of conspiracy theories began springing up, from interplanetary slave trafficking to some climatic radiation anomaly spontaneously vaporizing people. Some thought the Klingons were culling the world's numbers prior to an invasion. Others blamed the United Federation of Planets, Borg incursions, space-time vortices...you name it.
No one guessed it would be the Elachi that would finally invade, because why would they? But there they were one day, no longer quietly and secretly snatching a person here or there, but wantonly grabbing everyone they could. Khaiell wasted no time once the strange alien ships appeared in the skies. He gathered his friends and commandeered a ship right off the flight deck of the spaceport - a beat up old T'liss bird of prey some rich fool had bought and left there to be refit as a yacht.
* * *
"Astrometrics reports the system as Orixan," Khaiell's science officer reported, "and the anomalous readings are coming from the fourth planet."
"Very well, subcommander," Khaiell acknowledged. He was commanding R.R.W. Vivitrix, the refit 150 year old T'liss he'd escaped Leinarrh in. The ship and its crew had been commissioned in the forces of the Romulan Republic, a government still of nomads operating out of a flotilla of ships and searching for a new homeworld. They were on a mission to investigate another system, but long range scans had picked up a strange energy fluctuation that they were now investigating. "Helm, set your course for the system and engage cloak a demilleuc from the system."
Commander Khaiell paused then turned back to his science officer. "Subcommander Meszic, compile anything we have on record about Orixan and send it to the terminal in my ready room. Then keep working on the long range sensor readings and give me a theory as to what that energy signature is."
* * *
Orixan was a Class K planet devoid of life and not terribly rich in useful minerals. Tellarites had made an abortive attempt at establishing a colony with plans to terraform the world in the 23rd century. Only a handful of lightyears from the Federation side of the Romulan Neutral Zone of the time, however, made supplying the effort challenging - and risky - and so the project was abandoned. No other galactic power showed much interest in the system in the time since.
As the Vivitrix slid through the darkness of space under cloak, Khaiell glanced back at his science officer's report on the energy anomaly. He offered three possibilities: a naturally occurring reaction between materials in the system and an unknown spacial or subspacial energy emanation, a malfunctioning ship's warp engine or cloaking field, or an as-yet undiscovered form of cosmosoan. Science officer Meszic placed all three theories at roughly equal probability - which, to Khaiell meant he really had no idea.
The ship passed beyond the orbital threshold of Orixan V and entered the gravity-neutral zone between it and that of Orixan IV. "Sensors, perform a full-spectrum midrange scan, please, and make all data available to the science station as soon as it is gathered. Repeat the process using shortrange sensors as soon as we're in range." Khaiell waited for a "yes, commander" before turning to the science station.
"Subcommander Meszic, I want an updated set of probabilities as soon as you are able."
Then, suddenly, Khaiell had nothing immediate to do but wait. It was the beginning of the early shift aboardship, so he busied himself reading end-of-day reports from his department chiefs from the night before. Medical had a few cases of routine illnesses and minor injuries, with the most severe of the latter being an engineer with a broken arm. Skipping forward to the Chief Engineer's report, he found that one junior technician had spilled some lubricant causing another to slip and fall over the rail from a catwalk. The chief recommended a course of holodeck retraining for the offender and sickbay had ordered the injured engineer to three days of rest. That meant engineering would be down two techs for several days, and Khaiell sent a message to the Chief Engineer asking for a plan to ensure all shifts were adequately staffed.
"Commander," Meszic said, breaking the relative silence, "I may have determined the nature of the anomaly."
"Excellent work, subcommander," Khaiell said, rubbing his eyes, "please continue."
"Thank you, commander," Meszic replied. His inflectionless tone made him sound Vulcan. He was known to be a devotee of Ambassador Spock, and his demeanor exemplified his devotion. To Khaiell's mind, he was overdoing it a bit. "The energy anomaly is pulsing on a period of approximately 6 kevn between apices. At each apex there is a burst of iogenic particles. Between pulses and particularly in the trough, there is hyperexcited electromagnetic flux very similar to to that generated by a Romulan cloaking device."
"So," Khaiell extrapolated along the theoretical line his science officer had drawn, "there's a ship there under cloak, but the cloak is either failing in a way we've never encountered before or is being interfered with somehow. I'm not aware of cloaking devices generating iogenic particles."
"Your hypothesis is logical, sir," Meszic nodded toward him in a respectful way. "Immediately following each iogenic pulse, there is a brief window of a few micro-ewa in which sensors are able to detect a ship. The sensor images are heavily distorted by the energy emissions, but I was able to capture several and composite them. Shall I put the composite on the main viewer?"
"Please," Khaiell asked, shifting his gaze to the viewer excitedly. In a moment there appeared a fuzzy, pockmarked, and very dark image but the silouhette of something could be made out amid the bright halo of energy and backdrop of stars. The commander involuntarily stood and took a step toward the view screen as if getting closer might make the image clearer.
The science officer continued, "I have not encountered a ship configuration like this before, and the ship's computer cannot find a match in our data banks."
"It's a *Dhailkhina*-class," Khaiell informed his bridge crew, "it was a strike escort built to be the command vessel of a fleet intended for first-strike capabilities. The class was originally designed to defend against the threat of a synth assault, but was quickly adopted by the Tal Shiar."
"If the ship was being used as an experimental platform for a new cloaking device or other technologies, that could explain the presence of iogenic energy," Meszic surmised.
"Helm," Khaiell ordered, retaking the command chair, "bring us within transporter range of the anomaly. Slow to one quarter impulse once we're a million leuca away. I'd like us to take our time. Engineering?"
"Engineering here, commander," came the reply.
"Engineering, we will soon be approaching a source of intense iogenic radiation. Will our shields protect us?"
"Aye, commander," the engineer replied, "iogenic particles don't present a serious risk to the ship or the crew. Even if some of the radiation gets through our shields, it shouldn't be a problem."
"Very well. Helm, bring us in."
* * *
Once they got close, short range sensors were able to detect the ship more clearly. The science officer also reported that the energy pulses were subsiding - possibly whatever was powering them was becoming depleted. The commander ordered an away team to take a shuttle to the ship, since neither the science officer nor chief engineer could predict how the iogenic particle pulses and EM distortion might affect a transporter signal.
The away team quickly discovered two interesting facts: first, the ship had been abandoned, and second, the singularity that powered the ship's warp drive was gone. There was no point in trying to access the ship's computer with no power, so they set about searching the ship and disabling whatever was causing the energy pulses.
The cloaking device on the ship, they reported, was not standard-issue Romulan Star Empire equipment. The team reported signs of Borg enhancements, though they couldn't speculate what purpose those enhancements were intended to serve. After a few hours, the away team turned up a single crew member in a coma inside a store room. They had also gotten the cloak offline by then, so the Vivitrix was able to beam the unconscious crewman directly to sick bay.
* * *
"From what we've been able to piece together," Kererek began, "the ship was called *Ih'iurret* and was assigned to the Tal'Shiar before it left spacedock. The Tal'Shiar has evidently taken an interest in reverse-engineering Borg technology for their own use, and this ship was reassigned from covert missions to a test bed of sorts. Her commander, a *susse-thrai* named Ellhvain, was obsessed with cloaking, stealth, assassination, and generally performing useful activities while remaining hidden. She naturally volunteered to test a cloaking device enhanced by Borg technology.
"From there things get a bit murky. They went to Orixan as a place likely free of outside observers to run tests, and something went terribly wrong: something bad enough and something emergent enough that few had time to record logs or explain much about what happened. As near as we can tell, Borg nanites adapted to the cloaking system's architecture and began trying to assimilate the ship. The Tal'Shiar had the good sense to keep the experiemental technology isolated from the rest of ship systems - except power systems. The nanites somehow corrupted the singularity and...changed it. We don't know whether there was a catastrophic failure, or some drastic attempt to stop the assimilation, or some unfortunate combination of the two - but it appears the entire crew ceased to be.
"Without power, the Borg nanites went dormant. The energy pulses your people detected, Commander Khaiell, we some remnant of the catastrophe. The Science Ministry is still working out exactly what happened."
"That's all very fascinating, Admiral," Khaiell said, leaning forward at the large conference table, "but my crew and I need to resume our search for a habitable planet as soon as possible. If that will be all?"
"Patience, Khaiell," Kererek replied, clearly displeased with a subordinate's attempt to rush and dismiss him. "There's more. Our shipwrights have managed to remove the experimental cloak and compromised singularity and power systems, and refit the ship for service. I'm assigning you and your crew to the newly-Christened R.R.W. *Thehnhasisam*."