Mike Radford

Mike was a bit of a wild child. Son of an legislator and a school teacher, solitude was an integral part of his life growing up, and he made the most of it. From his early years into his teen years, Mike did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. The only thing that kept him even moderately safe was the love he had for his sister, Bailey. From the moment that little girl was born, Mike was never far from her side he was determined that she’d never be alone like he was.

The years passed and Mike and Bailey became the local trouble makers, always up to no good for the sake of a laugh. They never hurt anyone, never caused any lasting harm, but trouble they did cause. Until November 3rd, 2382, a date that Mike wears tattooed on his forearm.

There’d been no reaction time. The speeder they were on was maxed out, and there wasn’t supposed to be any loaders active in that area of the dockyards. But there it was barrelling down on them before anyone could reactive. It was years before dreams of Bailey hanging off the front of the loader, mangled and dead, didn’t wake Mike up. Years before he didn’t hate the man in the mirror.

Mike was forever changed. He found himself blamed and disowned by his parents, broken hearted and abandoned by the people who should have loved him. He wanted to run away and disappear and he couldn’t think of any place better to do that than space.

Mike doubled down on his schooling. Cs and Ds became straight As. Evenings on the street causing trouble became evenings in the labs learning everything he could. He rounded out his highschool career with above a 4.0 from all of the extra credit work and was blown away when the acceptance letters came in. But there was only one that mattered: Starfleet Academy.

“We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Starfleet Academy.”

He read the sentence no less than twelve times. He’d made it.

With little love left for the placed he’d called home, he left for San Francisco and buried himself in Academy work.

His academy life was relatively straight forward, good grades and no merit issues (other than that Kobayashi incident) the time he was there. His senior cruise went off swimmingly and before he knew it, he was graduated and assigned to the USS Calgary.

He served on the Calgary for years, running up the ranks from Ensign to LT (JG), before he moved to the ship that was set him back on a good path.

The USS Catamaran was old when Mike joined it, but that only added to the nuance. The flight control systems took knowledge and skill, not just fully trusting computers. And the CO and the XO were both old hands. The CO, a Captain Greg Park, had been in Starfleet for 40 years and took Mike under his wing as soon as he met him. Captain Park walked him through being a good officer, being a successful pilot, being a good person, and most importantly, how to forgive himself.

Mike found his feet again serving under Captain Park, where he remained until the Cat ran afoul of an ionic burst and the aging systems finally gave out.

After they were rescued, Captain Park decided it was time to retire and, after a warm, tear-filled hug with Mike, he left for his retirement.

Mike was on his own, but not for long. Orders came in for his next assignment. He was to report the the USS Venture as their Chief Flight Control Officer.