Residual: Part I - Recognised, Not Redacted

Posted on Mon Nov 24th, 2025 @ 5:46pm by Sergeant Jace Morven
Edited on Mon Nov 24th, 2025 @ 5:47pm

1,467 words; about a 7 minute read

USS Guinevere, 2388, FGF Barracks

The lights are low in the barracks. That half-blue wash Starfleet uses when people are meant to be sleeping. I hear one of the rookies turn over in his bunk, blanket dragging, mattress creaking. Someone else mutters something too low to catch, a dream bleeding out. The environmental systems give a slow, pulsing hiss. A PADD falls, soft click against the floor that doesn’t stir anyone around it. It’s the usual sounds of people at rest. The breathing, shifting…the odd muttered words that the UT can’t pick up. It doesn’t bother me. It hasn’t for years. These are the noises of those who are on my side. My tribe. I am just not yet used to their individual sounds. We’re not packed that close. I have a bunk, no one above me, a little table on the side. Not that there’s much on there, except my combadge. The drawer has my combat knife, my silver tin. Not so bad to sleep with my knife under my pillow. Not done that for a few years.

My eyes drift to the underside of the empty bunk above mine. I picked this not for the size but for the location. I can see the rest of the room from here, a quick exit, back to the wall. I can be cornered, sure, but no one can sneak up behind me. The whole room feels new. Well, the furniture and fixtures feel new. As if they suddenly realised they needed the FGF and threw us in storage.

I can’t stop tracing the underside of the top bunk with my eyes. Like it is hostile terrain or the stars on an unknown sky. Not a mark on it from a bored trooper, just smooth metal and plastic. I always repeat this pattern. Pattern recognition, I’ve been told, is to be expected with someone like me.

Not sure what was meant with that. Someone like me.

I’m not tired. Not the sort of tired where I fall asleep, even if I should be. I ran the squad hard today, kept the pressure on until I saw the signs of their limit, then let them recover. That’s how you find edges. Weakness, yes, but strength too. How fast they recover, who hesitates, who covers for someone else without being told, who lies about their knee, who loses breath but doesn’t stop moving. I made notes in my head as we went, and I’ll adjust the load next time. They’re green, but I can work with green. You just need to know where the fault lines are. Practice will steady them. Experience will sharpen them. The rest is finding where each one fits in the squad.

Still, that’s not what’s keeping me awake. Who is keeping me awake.

No, that is the woman who walked into my holodeck programme. She gave her name like it was nothing to guard, like sharing it was the most natural thing in the world. Elen Rell.

I didn’t plan to think about her, didn’t mean to carry her with me once I walked off that holodeck. But something about her stuck. Still sticks. She came in like the space already knew her name, like she wasn’t intruding. She was light, confident, not loud...well, a little loud, but there was nothing violent or cutting about it. That kind of certainty shifts the whole shape of a room. She had dark hair with curls, loose around her shoulders, eyes sharp but not defensive. And when she looked at me, really looked, there was no fear in it. No calculation either.

She just walked in there with her light voice and clear laugh. She saw me sitting alone, and she didn’t flinch. Didn’t apologise. Didn’t try to explain herself or give me room to leave. She just smiled. Soft, but not weak. Like it was for her as much as me. It didn’t feel like pity. Or curiosity. Or caution. It felt real. And I don’t know what to do with that. Not when there’s no common ground, no shared battle or combat situation to set the rules.

I’ve been watched before. I’ve been evaluated, avoided, measured, tracked. But this…this was different. She didn’t step away, she didn’t demand me to move. She talked, yes, and asked questions. But it wasn’t intrusive. And the bargain was clear, the answer to a question for more holodeck time. Bartering I can understand, there’s clear rules and expectations. I like that, when I know what I can expect from an interaction.

I didn’t exactly know at the time what she was expecting, but…I realised there wasn’t much. She just was there. And she stayed. And now I can’t get the sense of her out of my head.

I shut my eyes, try and clear it. Try and empty my head out as if purging a system but it doesn’t work. She is still there, in that quiet space between duty done and sleep awaiting. I can’t seem to stop the thoughts.

I turn my head on the pillow, letting out a breath that I know I have kept too long inside. That feeling in my chest isn’t new. It doesn’t come often, but it isn’t unfamiliar either. I know what it means when someone leaves a mark, not by force, not by words, but by staying. By doing something that shifts the ground you stand on.

Dannic did that. She stood in front of a system that didn’t necessarily want to make space for someone like me. The Federation had options…they could have sent me back to Turkana. But Dannic made sure they didn’t. She made a choice and it changed my life. It’s one of the reasons I am here, why I wear the uniform. Not the only one. It was the only path after a while, but that was the first step on that trail.

When it seemed impossible to catch up, Korrin was there. Always direct, never soft. I think she wanted more for me, wanted the system to see past the sharp edges. But it didn’t. It put me where it thought I belonged, and that was the Ground Forces.

Martinez came later. Different shape, different dynamic. They understood the language I never learned…all those little codes, gestures, looks that made other people easier to read. No…there was more than that. They didn’t just understand it, they translated it for me. Made it legible, made adjustments that helped shield me against what would have ripped me apart. They gave me the room to move without stepping wrong and never asked for anything in return. And when the lines blurred, when orders got too quiet or too clean to trust, they were the one who spoke. Not loudly. Not to challenge command. Just enough to make sure I heard it. So I could choose what mattered.

Vel gave me responsibility. Real weight and trusted me to make calls, lead small units, handle live fire without someone else’s hand on my shoulder. I don’t know why he did, not fully, but he did. He’d share a joke and not judge me if I didn’t get it. He’d take the time to pull me aside and ask me what I thought of another trooper, and how we’d get them to improve. He trusted my read on things. And when he was gone, something in me tightened and never quite let go. There’s no word for it. Not one I use. But it stays with me.

This thing now, this feeling, it doesn’t sit in the same place. It’s different without the rituals and order of the Ground Forces. Because she isn’t, she is regular Starfleet, the ones who we protect…the ones I was deemed unsuitable to serve with or beside. And yet she sees me, clearly…and it doesn’t feel like a risk for her to do so. She won’t ask me to flinch to prove I am not dangerous. She saw the shape of me and accepted it with no caveats, no orders.

Just a woman in my holodeck programme, smiling as she called herself the least necessary person on the ship. That is what stays with me. The warmth that wasn’t harsh. No bravado. No illusion. Just someone who saw me and didn’t try to change it.

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Sergeant Jace Morven
Platoon Sergeant, Alpha Squad
Federation Ground Forces
USS Guinevere

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