Vaebn Mairex

Vaebn Mairex was a Romulan the chief engineer and the second officer of the RIS. Little is known of his early life, but he had a rollercoaster career shortly after the Dominion War.

The Rihaihan rollercoaster
After many years as a Chief Engineer and then as a First Officer, Vaebn was given command of the IRW Rihaihan. The Rihaihan was not a new warbird. In fact, he was only given command because his superiors felt that his engineering experience would help him stretch the life of the warbird by another decade. His first mission as Riov was to patrol an out of the way section of the Romulan-Klingon border. Throughout the mission, the Rihaihan was plagued with sensor glitches. One night, Vaebn was woken up by a call from the bridge. They were picking up a blip in the sensors. Vaebn groggily reviewed the sensor logs and dismissed them as a glitch. Vaebn went back to sleep, and the Rihaihan continued on her way.

A couple days later, the Rihaihan was hailed by Khre'Riov Sulaneak from the Imperial Romulan Fleet HQ. After reviewing the logs forwarded from the Rihaihan, HQ had discovered that the sensor blip was actually a rarely used type of Klingon cloaking device. Vaebn was berated by Khre-Riov Sulaneak and demoted to Arrain. Command was given to Vaebn's First Officer, Erei'Riov t'Palas. As the Rihaihan sped away to attempt to track the Klingon vessel, Vaebn began his new duties as a lowly Propulsion Head in Engineering.

After days of tracking, the Rihaihan finally caught up with the Klingons in an asteroid belt known to contain a rare, but arguably useless compound called tricestium. The Klingons appeared to be collecting samples of the compound on one of the larger asteroids and transfering them to their Bird of Prey. Incensed at the Klingons audacity, the Rihaihan dropped their cloak and attacked the newer, better equiped Bird of Prey. Expecting an attack, the Klingons quickly recovered from their suprise and launched a counter attack of their own. The Rihaihan was heavily damaged. So much so, that her dilithium crystals were cracked causing major power outages throughout the ship. Thinking the Romulans defeated, the Klingons prepared to board the Rihaihan to raid her of all useful supplies. At that same moment, however, Vaebn did something drastic.

Fearing a collapse of the artificial quantum singularity powering the Rihaihan, Vaebn diverted a concentrated stream of warp plasma back into the core of the singularity. This provided a burst of power around the cracked dilithium crystal just long enough to swap it out for a new unharmed crystal, a very risky procedure. As the new crystal was slotted in place, a streak of plasma arced across engineering killing three and severely wounding Vaebn. However, the sudden burst of power back to the ship's systems couldn't have been timed any better. Just as the Klingon's shields dropped to allow tranport of a boarding party, the Rihaihan fired her main disruptor. The Bird of Prey was destroyed, and the boarding party perished mid-tranport. Unfortunately, all clues as to why the Klingons were collecting tricestium were destroyed.

Vaebn's career may have been dealt a severe blow by his failure to track the sensor blip, but his actions in engineering did much to redeem him in the eyes of the Rihaihan's crew. Eventually, that respect earned him a promotion to Enarrain and Chief of Engineering. Arguably, that act is the reason why Vaebn has been given the opportunity to act as Chief Engineer and Second Officer aboard the RIS Bouteina. Many see this dual role as a trial run for his entry back into the command track. Only time will tell if he succeeds or not. 

Service record

 * 2288-2292: Romulan Naval Academy
 * 2292-2301: IRW Mavel'Autria - Propulsion Engineer
 * 2301-2314: IRW Tavinex - Propulsion Engineer
 * 2314-2322: IRW t'Matlrael - Propulsion Engineer
 * 2322-2333: IRW M'Tirinal - Head of Propulsion
 * 2333-2341: IRW M'Tirinal - Chief Engineer
 * 2341-2359: IRW Ael'Vinael - Chief Engineer
 * 2359-2364: IRW Temarex - Second Officer
 * 2364-2375: IRW Temarex - First Officer
 * 2375-2376: IRW Rihaihan - Riov
 * 2376-2379: IRW Rihaihan - Engineering - Head of Propulsion
 * 2379-2383: IRW Rihaihan - Chief Engineer
 * 2383-Current: RIS Bouteina - Chief Engineer