Residual: Part II – Instinct, Not Intent

Posted on Tue Nov 25th, 2025 @ 6:52am by Sergeant Jace Morven

2,032 words; about a 10 minute read

Dominion War, early 2374

The jungle is too hot, makes it feel like a fire has raced through it and you’re stuck in the embers. It’s different, not the kind I saw in training simulations in the holosuites, not Earth’s kind where it feels more like entering a cave, but something made, something meant to kill whoever steps into it. The air is thick with chemicals, every breath sharp and dry. The leaves blister if you brush them, the vines bleed clear when you cut them and bubble on your gloves. The smell is all wrong. Ozone, scorched roots, blood. It clings in the back of my throat and does not let go.

My boots hit the mixture of leaves and mud in a steady rhythm, each step calculated because the terrain is treacherous. I keep low, phaser rifle tucked into my shoulder, eyes narrowed against the smoke. The left pauldron of my armour is cracked where a disruptor blast caught me earlier. Close enough I felt the heat crawl down my side, scraped skin raw, maybe blistered from the heat. Nothing that matters. I have not said anything. Martinez looked at me when it happened, that look in their eyes weighing up for a moment if I was injured or okay. When I moved, I saw their shoulders relax. Not much. But enough for their lips to move in a language I don’t understand yet, but have started to see the shape of.

Ahead, smoke curls up from what is left of a Dominion relay tower. They brought the hillside down this morning. Vasran was the one who caught it. Chest plate caved in, ribs likely broken. She was still breathing when they dragged her back. Medivac took her, maybe she makes it. I doubt I will see her again. I know the look of veins when they go dark under skin, with whatever weapons they use here. Seen it too often already. But the medics have gotten quicker with the hypos. She might live. But she won’t be the same.

Now we push forward again. Another charge, another stretch of ground to bleed through. The dermal regenerator is almost dry. The medic is Starfleet, not one of ours. He probably thought he would end up on a ship, scanning planets and cataloguing lifeforms, healing people under the bright lights of a well-stocked sickbay. Not here, with the screams and the blood. He’s young, still too clean and his hands haven’t blistered yet. He fumbles with the gloves we wear to keep our hands intact. His eyes are always a bit too wide and he looks constantly worried. I’ve noticed Terrow in step with him, the Betazoid trying to soothe in his own way.

The medic won’t last long. He’ll be rotated out soon, back on a Starfleet vessel. On a ship the Dominion takes you in one flash with everyone else. Out here they take you one by one, until no one is left.

The squad moves behind me, not smooth, not clean, more like something carrying wounds it cannot shake. Kerren drags his leg, the bandage tied high and bleeding through, dark already with drying blood. The medic tries to help, but right now we can’t stop so it is a hypo to dull the body’s signals. He keeps moving. Banik and Martinez are on the right, switching cover back and forth without needing to speak. It’s experience, but it’s clear Banik is taking her cues from Martinez. Raimi’s at the rear, blade still sticky from this morning’s fight. She looks the same as she always does, steady pace, eyes forward. Later, once we camp down, she’ll most likely check on everyone. She’s good at that.

Terrow trails close to me now. He hasn’t learned how to close his face down yet. It will come. For now every thought is written there, every sound in his voice. But his readings are good, not just from the tricorder but from that inherent skill Betazoids have. “Two hostiles. North ridge. Forty metres.” His voice comes through on the low channel, too tight, breathless and harsh and soft all wrapped in the tone of someone too young to be here.

I would rather have had silence and hand signals. Silence holds. Silence keeps you alive. But the regulations say otherwise and I have to bend to that. I try not to think too much on it. Better to just follow the rules they hand down and leave it there.

But what I don’t do is speak. I signal for them to hold and bring my phaser rifle up. Two I can take if I do this right. No sense risking everyone if it’s a trap or if there are more we haven’t caught. It’s not really even a decision for me. I just breathe to settle, once, twice and I go. I stay low as I run, phaser rifle in my hand, my body knows how to do this. I just need to let go.

The ground tries to fight me. Leaves slick and stacked, sliding if I put weight wrong. Mud pulls at my boots, heavy, sucking, ready to take balance if I let it. The air tastes burned, roots and metal, mixed with that sweet rot of green things cooked too fast. Every step drags the smell deeper into me.

I keep low, rifle pulled in close, eyes fixed on the shapes ahead where smoke bends through broken trees. Behind me, cover fire answers the move, sharp and measured. Not words. Just rhythm. Enough to say they are with me, distracting against anyone who might take a shot at me. The wreckage folds in like a trap. Metal torn into jagged shapes, branches twisted in ways they should not grow. It’s a wreckage and I grew up climbing out of those. This isn’t so different from the churn of Turkana, not when you boil it down.

I see the first one crouched behind the wreck of a dish antenna, weapon raised and searching for targets. The angle is poor for him, which is good for me. I bring the rifle up, steady my breath, and fire two short bursts into his chest. The beam hits clean, armour glowing for an instant before it buckles. He drops fast, life pulled from him so quickly the body seems to crumple in on itself, just weight collapsing into the dirt.

The second comes out of the smoke almost on top of me. No time to reset, no time to think. His body slams into mine and the ground slips under my boots and drags us both under. Mud and broken leaves grinding into my back as the rifle is torn away. My hand is on the knife at my leg before I even register the thought. His blade is high, and his throat tears out a snarl, guttural and harsh. It might mean something in their language, an oath or a curse, but it makes no difference in the moment.

He is stronger, heavier, the kind of mass meant to crush you flat. But I know how to move with it from fighting people bigger than me in the past. I drive an elbow up into the soft part of his throat and feel him choke against me, then punch hard into his jaw until his weight shifts. That is all I need. I roll with him, keep moving, and come up on top.

I shift the grip on my knife. The target is always the same. The thick white tube of ketracel-white at his neck stands out against the darkness of the armour, into the greyness of his neck. I cut through it, the blade biting deep through it and into him, until hot liquid floods over my glove. He claws at me once, then slows, body still trying to fight even as the strength drains away. I twist the blade to make certain and feel him go slack beneath me.

The dirt stinks of sap, blood, and burned roots. My gloves are slick, the material repelling it from sinking in anywhere except the seams. I wipe them on his armour, push up, and steady my breathing. My rifle lies close enough to reach. I take it back, checking it to make sure it is undamaged.

There is no pause. No mark left on me but blood. I step forward into the smoke again.

By the time I make it back through the smoke the medic is crouched over Kerren again, kit spread in the mud, hands working quick and steady. The light buzz of the dermal regenerator cuts through the noise, thin and constant, and I can see colour back in Kerren’s face. Not good, not fixed, but better. Enough that he can move when we need him to.

Terrow looks up as I approach. He has that neat, open-boned face that still looks too young out here, sharp lines softened by expression. Black eyes catch the dim light and hold too much in them, more than he means to show. He flinches when he meets my gaze, not fear, not shock, but recognition. His mouth starts to form the word. “You’re--”

“Shut it.” My voice is steady. There is no anger, but the tone is final. “Not now.” I cannot let him name it. Words drag things into the open that should stay buried. Out here words make weight, and none of us need it. There’s no time to stop and think about what we’ve done once it is done.

We move again. I take point, and the others follow.

Raimi falls in beside me, her step quiet, her blade still hanging loose at her side. Some of her red hair curls under her helmet, mingles with dirt and sweat on her cheek. She glances over and keeps her eyes on me longer than most would. “You’re not subtle,” she mutters.

“I’m alive.” The words come out before I think, almost automatic, the kind of answer I give when I want the subject to close. But the way she keeps watching makes me uncomfortable, like she might press further.

“You enjoy it, don’t you?” her voice is quiet but there’s a firmness there I am used to from her.

The question lingers longer than I expect. For a moment I ask myself if I do. I want the answer honest, not reflex, not denial. I run through the fight in my head, the weight, the blood, the silence after. There was no pleasure in it. Only the clarity of knowing what to do and doing it. I shake my head. “No.” I leave it there, then add, quieter, “But I’m good at it.”

She nods once, slow, and lets the silence cover the rest. She knows when to stop, can tell when my shoulders tense with it. I see Martinez moving to take the lead, slipping past me. Their eyes meet mine and they give a small nod. I don’t return it but I know I don’t have to. Martinez knows when to step up.

Behind us Terrow speaks, voice soft, strained, too much weight in it. There’s a choked quality to it and I am not sure if it is emotion or the air here. “The one you stabbed....he was surrendering.”

My stride falters for a breath, mud shifts under my boots. No, he wasn’t. I didn’t need language to know he wasn’t surrendering. And if he was? If the words he had spoken in his language had been surrender, would that have made a difference to me in the moment when most of what I was ended up being pure instinct? I have no answer. Not a real one. I walk on. My voice stays even, no edge, no heat. Just the truth as it is, in this moment. “He was still moving.”


---

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

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