Saeihr Kharth

The Fall of Romulus

Saeihr t’Kharth was born on Romulus, the daughter of a military officer and a professor of mathematics. Her mother was a respected starship commander, and as such her family enjoyed a comfortable prestige throughout her early childhood. Saeihr was brought up with a strong sense of duty and commitment to the Empire, and intended to follow in these footsteps of military service. Her father had once been a logistics officer for the Senate before he entered academia, and had often used his experience and contacts to speak publicly on political matters. But he took care to pick his battles, and between his caution and his wife’s reputation he avoided undue attention from Romulan authorities.

This fell apart in the 2380s, as Romulan society began to strain with the escaping secret of the impending supernova of the Romulan star. Discord reached even the Romulan navy, and Saeihr’s mother was killed in a confrontation with officers attempting to desert with an entire task group. The impact upon her family was immeasurable, even beyond the emotional distress. Her outraged father publicly castigated the Senate, accusing them of doing nothing while officers sacrificed themselves and civilians suffered. While this brought public attention to the Senate’s prevaricating and contributed to their eventual acceptance for assistance from the Federation, it had dire consequences for the family. They were now fallen from favour and bereft of any political protection.

As such, Saeihr and her father were low on any evacuation priority of the Empire. Only by the intervention of Federation starship commander Alexander Beckett, who had known her mother during the Dominion War, did they secure passage on what transpired to be one of the last Federation evacuation ships off Romulus. With the Attack on Mars and subsequent collapse of Federation aid, Saeihr and her father were placed in a Romulan Refugee Hub on the former Neutral Zone world of Teros IV, and all but abandoned there.

Escaping the Chaos

Now fourteen, Saeihr had been transported from comfortable privilege to a desperate refugee lifestyle. With minimal Federation support, eking out a living on Teros was a matter of begging, borrowing, stealing, and fighting. Her father, mild-mannered beyond his political activism, tried his best and was beaten nearly to death within the first month of their arrival as order collapsed in the refugee hub, forcing Saeihr to fend for both of them.

This situation persisted for years as Saeihr learnt to survive. Her father struggled more and more, until in early-2388 he revealed he had secured her transport to Earth. Somehow he had communicated with now-Captain Alexander Beckett, their previous saviour, who agreed to sponsor her application to Starfleet Academy. Her father expected that once she was off-world for an interview, she would be able to make her own way through the Federation regardless of outcome – the important thing was getting off Teros.

Saeihr took the opportunity and didn’t look deeper. She later discover her father was indebted to a local gang for an amount he couldn’t possibly repay to secure this communication, and in 2390 he was murdered for this. Saeihr blames herself for not questioning the situation deeper before she left, and for not trying to save him with her.

Entering the Academy was not easy. She scored high on aptitude tests, but had missed several critical years of education, and her acceptance was conditional on undertaking additional preparatory and remedial courses. While Saeihr was bright and driven and applied herself in the face of these obstacles, life in the Federation took some adjustment. She was unaccustomed to discipline by then, used to fighting for whatever she had, and her early years were dotted with remarks of poor conduct and an individualistic streak that made her a mediocre team player. Instructors were sympathetic to her background, and it was politically convenient for Starfleet to demonstrate they could transform a refugee girl into a productive officer, but her four years at the Academy were full of teething problems.

USS Cavalier

She trained as a security officer, qualifying in interstellar relations and small-group tactics, and was assigned to the USS Cavalier upon graduation. The Cavalier was a small ship dispatched on deep-space exploration beyond Cardassian territory as new treaties opened up new avenues to Starfleet, and as a posting it reflected her fairly middling performance at the Academy. An assignment that was excitement and opportunity for many aboard was training and tedium for a junior security officer. Away missions were in high demand in the department, and while Kharth trained hard to be first choice for such assignments, she repeatedly clashed with the security chief in matters of teamwork and protocol.

With her career struggling the moment it started, Kharth spent the first months of the assignment deeply dispirited. She considered it a personal insult when she was sent as escort on a two-week geological survey of a system’s asteroid belts by the Cavalier’s atmospheric shuttle. But this was her first time working with the ship’s chief science officer, a young Trill named Davir Hargan, who recognised she felt she’d drawn the short straw.

Hargan took the time to keep her busy, keep her involved in the survey, and otherwise to keep her company. Patient and intelligent, he perhaps listened to her complaints because he had little choice while stuck together, but he proved the first person on the ship to take her seriously – and to challenge her perspectives without shutting them down. If she could not do the work she wanted aboard the Cavalier, then this was an opportunity, Hargan insisted – a chance to broaden her horizons, not strain against things she couldn’t change.

While Kharth collected several more reprimands over the next two years, she also applied herself as an officer, assessing Starfleet’s away team protocols and where they needed modifying or updating in the face of new challenges – and the Federation’s more paranoid approach to the rest of the galaxy. But while she demonstrated herself as a forward-thinking officer who was more flexible than many of her colleagues, many suspect it was the manipulations of her old family friend, now-Commodore Beckett, who secured her position as Cavalier’s Chief of Security when her predecessor moved on.

The responsibility did her good in easing her boredom and impatience – or perhaps it was the influence of Davir Hargan, the two of them grown near-inseparable. She still found new opportunities to earn spots on her record, except now it was for arguing with the captain about or taking measures which, in her opinion, kept the crew safe.

The Cavalier approached the end of her exploratory mission in 2396, but before Kharth and Hargan made any decisions on the future of their relationship, matters changed again. Hargan was selected as the next host of the Airex symbiont, whose previous host had died unexpectedly. He had begun to believe it would never happen and, while apprehensive, he accepted the chance. Kharth was assured this would change but not destroy their relationship and, although deeply apprehensive of losing anyone else in her life, she chose to believe him, and hoped. It was a hope dashed when Davir Airex took a long leave of absence after the joining, taking time for himself – and ultimately sent word that he wished to end their relationship, explaining very little except that he had changed too much.

Under an Admiral’s Wing

Embittered and with nothing but her work, she this time explicitly turned to now-Admiral Beckett for aid. She needed a purpose, and he arranged for her posting to Starbase 371 as Chief of Security. This station on the border with the Breen was a common stop-off point for local colonial affairs, and soon Kharth realised she was not Beckett’s protege – she was his spy, his eyes and ears in a bustling frontier. She gained more grounding in modern Starfleet on 371, contending with aggression from the Breen and regional pirates, Ferengi meddling, and proved herself a capable combat leader and enforcer of Federation law.

But Beckett’s uses for her changed over time. In 2399, the USS Endeavour lost several of her staff, including her Chief of Security, and Kharth was immediately dispatched along with another of Beckett’s favourites, new commanding officer Matt Rourke. But in Rourke, Kharth found an officer tired of the politics of his superiors, who placed trust in her and gave her leeway to do her job. That took some of the sting of reuniting with Endeavour’s Chief Science Officer: Lieutenant Commander Davir Airex.

Despite herself, Kharth’s loyalty to Rourke grew, and she admitted to him Beckett’s expectation she would monitor his behaviour. In turn, Rourke took her under his wing, protecting her from the admiral – and keeping her as Chief of Security in the months ahead. Through multiple missions Endeavour faced, Kharth demonstrated greater judgement and maturity, and largely thrived under Rourke’s leadership. She was commended for bravery during the pursuit of the Wild Hunt pirates and rescuing the crew of the trapped USS Odysseus during the Stormbreaker campaign. After the death of Endeavour’s second officer Petrias Graelin in mid-2400, Rourke promoted her to Lieutenant Commander and selected her as Graelin’s replacement.

Burdens of Command

Kharth spent some months struggling with these new responsibilities, particularly when significant changes to Endeavour’s command staff occurred with the ship’s assignment under squadron leader Fleet Captain Jericho. In the ensuing power struggles that stretched across multiple ships, Kharth’s focus turned inward as she dedicated herself to supporting Endeavour’s crew and missions while other command-level officers, including Captain Rourke, were diverted by unit politics. This reached a fever pitch in the Lost Fleet’s invasion, where Kharth aided and supported a mutiny against acting captain Krish Malhotra during the Battle of Izar to ensure the mission’s success.

After the defeat of the Lost Fleet, Matt Rourke was reassigned, and command of Endeavour fell to her former executive officer, Karana Valance. Valance and Kharth had long been rivals, the disciplined and by-the-book Valance often at odds with Kharth’s fiery bluntness, though the two had developed a begrudging, mutual respect over the years. To Kharth’s surprise, Valance asked Kharth to step up and serve as her first officer, choosing an XO who was unafraid to challenge her when the time was right. Despite her reluctance, Kharth agreed, guiding Endeavour through the challenges of the Borg’s return in mid-2401.

Upon the sudden expansion of Underspace later that year, Endeavour spent weeks trapped on the far side of the galaxy, engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse with Hirogen hunters. With Valance off-ship, Kharth stepped up to her first real challenge of starship command, fighting hard to protect her crew and even stepping up to defend local cosmozoans from the Hirogen. In light of this demonstration of her aptitude in command, an experience which brought the sharp-tongued Kharth much closer to the crew she’d served with for years, she was promoted to full commander.