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
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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

Vektul took in the sight of the young officer—unguarded, casual, surprised—and then, just briefly, the smell of something sweet lingering in the air. Jumja root, perhaps. The scent was unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.

He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment.

“I was looking for Ensign Thol,” he said. “This is not Ensign Thol’s door.”

His eyes flicked past Rado’s shoulder, uninvited but not intrusive—just enough to register the dimmed lighting, the lone table, the faint shimmer of a holophoto nearby.

“Regardless,” he added, “you opened it.”

There was the faintest hint of something behind his voice—an almost imperceptible shift in tone. Not warmth. But recognition.

Vektul offered a single, subtle nod. “My apologies… Lieutenant.”

¥Major Vektul¥
Chief Engineer
USS Memorial

“No, no, it’s, uh, no big deal. Only the Prophets know how many wrong doors I’ve knocked on. Ensign Thol’s quarters is, uh, down the hall and to the left. I realized that the, uh, Romulan numeric system must be different from the Federation way.” Rado said, hoping to provide an explantation.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Rado Gainn
Chief of Security

Vektul gave the faintest of nods at the correction. “The systems are not so different,” he said. “But the logic beneath them often is.”

He did not move immediately. His gaze returned briefly to the interior of the quarters—another glance, not invasive, but sharp in its clarity. A table set for one. The residue of something ceremonial, or personal. A quiet.

His brow shifted—barely. A crease. Thought, perhaps. Or memory.

“You were observing a remembrance,” he said. Not a question.

A pause followed. No apology this time. No discomfort. Just the faint hum of corridor lights, and Vektul, standing with hands behind his back, offering no explanation for why he still hadn’t turned to leave.

He added, quietly, “My intrusion was poorly timed.”

And yet… he remained.

¥Major Vektul¥
Chief Engineer
U.S.S. Memorial