Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Rado Gainn (Chief of Security) in COS Quarters - Birthday Blues

Posted by Major Vektul (Chief Engineer) in COS Quarters - Birthday Blues

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Rado Gainn (Chief of Security) in COS Quarters - Birthday Blues
Today was Rado’s tenth birthday without the people that had mattered most to him: his family. Ten years. He’s changed so much. Would they even recognize him if they were alive today?

He sat dejectedly at his new dining table, eating a jumja stick. But not even that could cheer him up. Sighing, he looked at the two pictures that he had set up. The first one was a grainy image of his mother Rado Cife and his sister Rado Xamis at the one Gratitude Festival that they managed to get to. Rado didn’t having that picture as a reminder of his mother’s and sister’s faces. The quality of the photo was awful and taken six years before their deaths, but alas, it was the only photo of them that survived the Occupation.

But at least that photo was of his family members. He looked at the photo that he had substituted as a photo of his father. It had originally been a photo of some politican from Earth by the name of Lyndon Johnson but with the assistance of a marker, Lyndon Johnson the Human became Rado Milol the Bajoran farmer. The resemblance may be uncanny, but Rado couldn’t fool himself into thinking that he was looking at his father.

He could have used the much better and clearer pictures of his family that the Federation News Network had managed to find and released in one of their journalist’s report called The Victims of the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, but Rado couldn’t bring himself to look. It hurt too much.

He looked at his half-eaten jumja stick and mumbled to himself, “Happy Birthday.”

Lieutenant Junior Grade Rado Gainn
Chief of Security

Major Vektul paused outside the door, consulting the PADD in his hand. He frowned slightly, then looked up at the room number. A moment’s hesitation.

This was supposed to be Ensign Thol’s quarters.

He pressed the door chime.

And waited.

-Major Vektul
Chief Engineer
USS Memorial

Rado’s door chimed, much to his surprise. He wasn’t expecting any visitors and he hadn’t mentioned that it was his birthday to anyone, not even T’Han or Ervim Kudas. So who could it be?

He bit off the last bits of his jumja stick and answered the door. Upon seeing that it was a Romulan, he froze for a split second, thinking that the Memorial had been infiltrated again. But he soon saw the Romulan wearing an engineering uniform, so he leaned against the door frame and said, “Um…Can I, uh, help you?”

Lieutenant Junior Grade Rado Gainn
Chief of Security

BUMP!

Lieutenant Junior Grade Rado Gainn
Chief of Security