Residual: Part IV - Instinct, Memory

Posted on Wed Nov 26th, 2025 @ 6:17am by Sergeant Jace Morven
Edited on Wed Nov 26th, 2025 @ 6:22am

1,960 words; about a 10 minute read

USS Guinevere, FGF Barracks, 2388

The memory drags at me and I realise I am frowning as if waiting for sounds that will never come. My eyes are open when they should be shut. Sleep does not come easy. Hasn’t in years. My body stays braced, waiting for shellfire, for disruptors in the dark. Around me, the sounds of my new squad asleep is restful. No night terrors, no additional noise except them and the low hum of the ship.

Elen’s shook something loose. Memories don’t usually flow this easily through me. I don’t usually think back and…actively remember.

It was the way she looked at me. The way her eyes narrowed with humour, so different and so similar to Martinez’s. Humour and warmth and that lack of any demand. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. Fifteen years…or longer. I didn’t realise I’d missed it. That kind of look. Not of challenge, not sympathy. Just…seeing me, without looking at me to see how I’d be utilised. I’m not sure what to do with it. I don’t think I ever was.

The night in the bunker comes back sharp. Acid rain steaming off our boots, that crooked shape taped to the wall that someone said was a Christmas tree. Martinez sitting still, grief locked tight in their throat, fists clenched, voice clipped when they said Calculated loss.

Something shifted in them that night. Not broken, just a different fit inside of them. Their jokes came colder for a while. Their trust slower, yet clung to smaller things that had not seemed to matter before. But in their core they didn’t change, just adapted to the grief inside of them at the loss of their little brother. Diego Martinez. I remember that name even if I never met him, never even saw a holopicture of him. I imagined him looking like Martinez, but with stubble.

Martinez stayed and on the surface nothing really changed, not at first. Grief got locked in and they still flanked left when I flanked right and moved like someone ready to die for the squad if that was what it took.

I remember Martinez noticing the replicated mint tea I carried, how it was rough and never quite right. Weeks later they found a way to get real dried leaves, smuggled in from somewhere, pressed into a small silver tin. They handed it over with a smile that caught me off guard. Not the kind people use to soften orders or cover nerves. Just a smile at the act of giving. No strings. No weight. The first gift I had ever been handed like that.

That night in the bunker I slid it back across the table. The only thing I had to give in return. I still carry that tin.

Martinez never spoke of their brother again, not in any way where the loss was more than something that they lived with. They did not need to. Some things hold without words. Just presence. Just the fact that fifteen years later they are still here in my mind.

That matters to me, even if I am not sure why. So I lie here awake, remembering, seeing echoes of them in other people I meet. And in some part of me I am still on watch.

Starbase 371 – January 2375

Two days off the line. Shore leave, R and R, call it what you like. Enough to breathe, enough to count who is still here. Enough to get clean, which is the first thing I do. Ration sonic shower time but I take it. I map my new bruises and scars, just so I know them by sight. The bruises are going to disappear with time, the scars will linger. Most of them were not that deep, will heal as a thin line like those on my arms. One or two are deeper and I touch one, still tender. The clothes I dress in don’t feel like mine, they’re newly replicated to my size. I take the moment to just feel clean.

The starbase itself looks worn. Scorch marks across the blast shields, scaffold bolted along the ring, weld lines still raw. Inside, the light flickers, consoles patched with whatever fit. Klingons move loud through the concourse, armour clattering, voices raised. A little over a year ago we were killing each other. Now they are allies. My shoulders still go tight when they pass. I see the same tension in the others. We will acclimate to it. Terrow is the only one who doesn’t tense when a Klingon shouts a challenge to her friends.

The bar we find is steel and shadow. The kind of place that smells of old sweat and oil, where voices are too loud but no one is really celebrating. Not respect, just exhaustion. Drinks are synthol, Federation-regulated, weak enough to remind you duty can still call.

We sit together out of habit as much as any want. Martinez laughs at something Raimi says, too sharp, covering the look in their eyes when they think no one sees it. Pain held in tight, not gone. Banik leans into Kerren before he can square up against a Klingon at the bar. Terrow is quieter than he was before the bunker. His eyes still sweep the room, but he does it slow, less restless, like he is carrying weight he cannot name.

I don’t really join into the conversations but I keep an eye, give a nod if someone talks to me. I order a drink, synthol that I don’t want but I know it is expected of me. It tastes bitter in my mouth and it dulls my edges too much. I want to stay sharp so I don’t drink as much as bring it to my lips and taste it. My muscles are still aching from the last run. My new scars will settle, pull a little until I get used to it. The medics wanted to heal them up but it was days after the injury and I didn’t want them erased.

The station hums around me. Low talk, glasses striking the steel tables, boots on the deck. The lights buzz faint at the edge of hearing, too dim to trust, and it holds me in place. I stay after the others go, drifting off to what they want to do. I know Martinez will hunt for a place to get a tattoo. It’ll be their first one but their brother Diego wanted one. Stars. Martinez has been drawing them since he died, in sand, in mud, tracing patterns. Terrow’s headed off to the counsellor. Not because of their profession but because we were told it was a Betazoid. I know it matters to Terrow and for once I get it. The squad don’t speak the same depth of language as Betazoids. Raimi goes to get her hair cut. She always does that. And Kerren and Banik need to hit another bar, one with music. I stay. I don’t have anywhere else to go and right now there’s tension I can’t shake. Staying still is better than moving and finding ways to get rid of it.

That is when I see him. Tall, broad through the shoulders, blond hair cut close. Clearly a Trill. The line of spots runs down from his temple into the collar of his clothes, a path the eye follows whether you want it to or not. His steps are steady, measured, carrying weight without strain. Too smooth for Starfleet. More like someone trained to track, to close distance when he wants to. Maybe in this life, maybe in a Symbiont’s previous one.

He smiles at me, warm and quick. My body answers before my mind catches up, stomach tightening, heat rising fast through my chest and neck. Not something I name, just instinct surfacing. My fingers curl against the rim of the glass, steady, holding on, but I do not drink.

When he reaches me, the movement is quiet, careful. His hand touches my arm, light enough to ask, not take. It does not feel like a claim, not even a threat. Still it costs me to keep still, not to pull back. My body remembers being hurt this way before, when closeness was a weapon. Turkana taught me that. I do not want that again.

But I am not small now. Not cornered. If this turns, I know where the exits are. Three paces past the bar. His height gives me reach to work against, but not weight, not if I take the knee first. An elbow would break the jaw before he drew breath. I run the angles even as I let his hand rest on me.

The pull stays with me, quiet and insistent. It is not control, not claim. It feels like choice. And that is harder to guard against than threat.

I get up and we slip off into a service corridor, lower deck, quiet. He doesn’t say anything and neither do I, instead just looks passes between us, enough to decide. He touches my arm now and then almost as if he is assuring himself I am still there. We step into a darkened corner, and my hands grip his shoulders. I feel his on my sides, going lower. My own go from his shoulders, not to undress, but to feel.

It's too exposed for anything else and I bury my face against his shoulder at the heat I feel, the friction of his hands and body against me. I feel his mouth hard against my neck, not biting, but lingering. My hands move, following paths they know by instinct I can’t name. My own breath is loud in my ears, my heart hammering against my ribs. It’s not violence, not hard bites and pain. It isn’t soft either, no words said, no empty promises or even names. Just instinct and friction and finally release of all tension through the pleasure. I shudder against him and he makes a noise that almost sounds pained.

I am panting against his shoulder and wipe my face against it for a moment before pulling back, blinking. My shoulders are more relaxed, heat weighing down my limbs, my skin flushed with it. The knot under my ribs has eased and I feel like I can finally take a deeper breath.

The Trill watches me and then touches my cheek. I freeze as he leans in close, his lips against mine, soft and gentle. He kisses me not to own me, but the softness and care, the gentleness makes something in me recoil. I pull back, meeting his eyes before looking away. I take a deliberate step back and reach into the pocket of my fatigues for a handkerchief. I wipe my neck, my face, any other evidence of what has happened. He does the same, head bowed, not looking at me in the moment.

We still don’t speak but we step out together. I turn to go back to the bar and he reaches out, his hand touching my arm. I turn to him and he just smiles, then gives me a wink and turns. I watch him walk away, my lips parted.

I don’t understand much. But I understand desperation and need. This was it. Just proof that for a moment we were still alive. And maybe proof that for a moment my hands could do something that wasn’t killing.

---

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

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