Patterns in the Silence: Part III – Lessons in Control

Posted on Thu Sep 11th, 2025 @ 2:24pm by Sergeant Jace Morven

2,705 words; about a 14 minute read

USS Guinevere, 2388

I am still dyslexic. Seventeen years on and it has not shifted, not even a little. I have adapted, built the workarounds. I get the computer to read things out loud. I can catch the rhythm of languages quick enough, hear the shape of them in my head, speak them back with barely a stumble. But words on a page never stay still for me. Reading one sentence drains me more than a hundred push-ups. I hate it. So I avoid it.

Some officers take that for weakness. I let them. Easier to let them think it than explain. Sometimes, when the blur comes harder, when fatigue sets in and the shapes crawl more than usual, I feel the old doubt stirring. Not in my head, because I can argue against it there. But lower, in the gut, where shame lives. The thought sits heavy, wordless, and I have to push it down.

My body complains now, tight muscles seizing as if to remind me that time has slipped again. I stretch, roll out the stiffness, and catch the sour edge of sweat clinging to me. Salt crusts white where it dried on the black of my shirt. I cross to the replicator, call up a bottle with the minerals and vitamins to patch me together after the workout.

I do not like thinking about nutrition. Food was survival once. When it was there, you ate slow, careful, so you would not make yourself sick, or so it would last a little longer. When it was gone, you went without and tried not to think about the ache. Even now, I eat to stop the hollow pain, not to enjoy it. I still carry a ration bar in my pocket, always. Habit, insurance, call it what you want. I know what hunger feels like. I do not plan to feel it again.

The first mouthful tastes like rainwater down rock, clean enough not to kill, never clean enough to trust. I register it, file it, accept it. That is what is in the bottle and I need it, so I drink. I do not change the flavour. I would not know what else to pick.

I have watched others linger over meals, laugh around a table, drink until they are loose and stumbling. They eat because they like the taste. They drink because they want the world to blur. I have never understood it. The idea of taking something into your body only for the pleasure of it. The idea of making yourself weaker on purpose.

I tip the bottle back, shoulders set, and finish it like a man carrying out a duty. Eating. Drinking. Living. It is still about not starving.

I head out, bottle finished, and make my way toward the barracks showers. I stop first for fresh clothes. Always. No point in washing if you put the same dirt back on. Clean clothes are part of it. Personal hygiene was once a luxury, but it is one I will not give up now. I can be dirty in the field, when there is no other choice, when dirt and sweat turn into another layer of armour. But the feeling of being clean is different. It is one of the few things that reminds me I am still alive, still here.

Grooming is another matter. Shaving, cutting hair, trimming nails. That is work. Necessary, but without meaning. Clean skin against clean fabric is not work. It is something else. Not joy. Not comfort. Worth, maybe. Proof I am not still crawling through the tunnels, skin raw with dirt and smoke, too tired to care what clung to me.

The showers are sonic. Booths lined up in rows, each one private. Isolation chambers where you can strip down to nothing and let the hum scour you clean.

I undress and fold the dirty clothes into a neat pile. Naked, I do not think about modesty. That was never part of my life. On Turkana IV, no one cared if you were bare. A body was just a body. Hungry, armed, bleeding, breathing. Nothing more. Later, in Starfleet, I learned that nudity makes people uncomfortable. I can respect it, but it never mattered to me.

I know my scars catch the light, pale lines, raised ridges, some deep, some faint. I do not hide them. They are not shame. They are proof. A record of what I survived. If anyone else looks and sees damage, that belongs to them. For me, they are simply mine.

I step into the booth and switch it on. The vibrations sweep through me, humming in my chest and bones. My eyes close. The sound fills the silence in my head. The sensation is more than clean. It strips away what clings, the sweat, the salt, the memory of grime that once never left. Each time feels like reclaiming a part of myself I was never allowed to keep.

Starfleet Enlisted Preparation Programme, 2368

They said I was eighteen now. Estimated birth year 2350, though even they admitted it was inconclusive. I do not know either. Time never meant much on Turkana IV. Days were only light and dark, hunger and not hunger. But in their system, eighteen makes me an adult. Still, they treat me like a ward, like I need to be managed.

I remember the counsellor saying it. Trauma. Damage. That I was the Federation’s responsibility to heal. She said it with a calm face, but her eyes betrayed her. Eyes full of stories she would never tell me. I did not answer much. I did not have to. Their scans already spoke for me, charting out everything I would not put into words.

The room buzzes with low conversation. Pupils in crisp blue jumpsuits sit at terminals, some focused, some staring blank. The instructor’s voice comes through the overhead. “Today’s module: Federation Interstellar Relations, twenty-second through twenty-fourth century.”

I sit at the edge of the room. My terminal blinks at me, waiting. Expecting.
The words on the screen writhe as soon as I try to catch them. They slip and rearrange, just out of reach. It feels deliberate, like they are taunting me. My chest tightens. Not panic, exactly. Just that sharp, tired pressure that never leaves. Like standing in open daylight with no cover. I can feel eyes on me, whether or not anyone is actually looking.

Around me, the others work. Fingers moving fast across controls, assignments completed in neat sequences. Some already finished, screens shifting to new modules, while mine still waits, blinking like a silent accusation. Their ease makes my failure louder.

I let out a sigh, heavy, unhidden. I know I am not stupid. I can remember what I hear. Dates, treaties, names. Spoken words stay solid in my head. But written ones scatter. I try to grip them and they turn to smoke between my fingers.
I close my eyes, recite the lecture back to myself. Words spoken stay. Words written crawl away. None of it helps me finish the assignment waiting on the screen. The system wants proof I cannot give.

“Morven.” A voice behind me.

I do not turn. “I’m working on it.” The words slip out defensive, subdued. I have learned that tutors expect progress even when I have nothing to show them.

There is a pause. Not long, not sharp. A measured silence. I pay attention to silences. On Turkana IV, they meant as much as words. A pause could be the breath before a strike, or the gap where a lie slid into place. Here, the pause holds none of that. Just patience. Then the voice again, softer but with a firmness beneath it. “I know.” Warrant Officer Dalia Korrin steps to my side, PADD in hand. She does not hover. She does not lean over my shoulder or demand to see my screen. That is why I let myself listen.

She has sharp eyes, hair cropped close, a voice stripped clean of pretence. She never hands me pity. She also never demands more than I can give. That steadies me in a way I do not want to admit. At the same time it unsettles me, because it means she sees through to the core of me…that she knows I can give more when I am ready. I do not think of her as safe. I do not think in those terms. But I understand her. And that makes her easier to follow. “Use the audio support,” she says, tilting her head toward the terminal. “You have memory for spoken detail. Use it.”

I hesitate. My hand stalls over the control. Singling myself out feels like hanging a target sign on my back. Weakness draws eyes, and eyes draw predators. Teenagers are no different from adults in that. They have already formed their groups, built hierarchies, chosen their prey. Bullies look cleaner in Federation blue, but they are still bullies. And I hate bullies.

Still, I toggle the function. The terminal shifts, and text becomes voice. Neutral Federation tones narrate treaties and conflicts, steady where the letters had refused to be. My shoulders ease, fraction by fraction, until the knot in my chest loosens enough for me to breathe without grinding my teeth. Korrin does not tell me I did well. She does not praise me or clap my shoulder. She just moves on to the next cadet, her silence leaving space for me to find my own ground. That silence is what makes me trust her.

Later, in the gym, I line up across from a Rigelian youth. Taller than me. Broader. The instructions are simple. Hold. Control. Subdue and disarm. Starfleet style. Clean, restrained, force meant to stop without breaking.
But I only know one way to fight. Put them down before they put me down. End it fast.

The Rigelian lunges. My body moves without thought. I step inside the strike, shoulder against chest, hook his leg and drive. His weight hits the mat hard. Air leaves him in a grunt. My hands stay tight until I feel the fight gone out of him, then I let go. My breath comes steady. My muscles ready for more if he rises. The instructor frowns, stepping in close. “You’re not here to hurt your own.” His tone carries the edge of frustration.

I stay silent. The fight is finished. That was the point. My chest is calm, my fists loose, the hum of readiness still in me. The silence stretches. I can feel his patience thinning with every heartbeat. Around us, I hear the shift of bodies, the scrape of shoes on the mat. Other cadets watching. A few whispers, low but sharp, like knives passed between hands. Eyes cut away when I glance, but not before I catch the look. Uneasy. Measuring. Some of them are afraid. Others look like they are waiting for me to slip again.

The Rigelian pushes himself up, eyes cutting toward me. Not just pain in them. Resentment too. And under that, a trace of something sharper, like fear. I know that look. I have seen it before, in alleys and tunnels, in enemies and sometimes even allies. It is the look that says I am not like them. And I do not understand. This way of fighting has kept me alive. It has kept me, in its own way, safe. Why should I change it?

They tell me my progress like a verdict. Simple words spoken in a flat tone, not cruel, not kind, just deciding where I fit.

“Physical aptitude: outstanding. Mental discipline: highly variable. Peer interaction: severely limited.”

None of it surprises me. I do not bond with the others. They laugh easily, swap notes across terminals, nudge each other about mistakes, ask about home. Their voices move in a rhythm I do not understand. Jokes, glances, pauses, all of it layered with meanings I cannot track. They are fluent in a language I have never learned.

I sit at the edge of it, answering with silence, or a single word when silence is not enough. When someone pushes me to say more, I give them the truth, plain, unwrapped. It always hits too hard. They blink, stumble, sometimes laugh awkwardly. They do not know whether to be cut by it or afraid of it.
I never mean it to hurt. But I also do not see the point of sanding truth smooth just to make it easier for someone else to swallow. On Turkana IV, words had to cut if they were going to matter. Here, words are traded like currency, soft enough to hold people together. I can see that, but I cannot do it. I am not stupid. I am learning what is expected here. I just cannot find the bridge between what I see and what I am. Their cues slide past me, and the gap only grows wider.

So I listen. I watch. I sit apart. Their closeness sharpens the space between them and me until it feels like a wall.

Evening leaves the gym quiet. Lights low, corridors hushed. This is the time I prefer. Empty space. No one watching. Nothing to perform for. The bag swings in front of me, replicated leather creaking as I drive my fists into it again and again. My hands are taped tight, muscles corded, sweat running down my back until it soaks into my shorts. This lets me move without restraint, without thinking about what I should and shouldn't do and no longer anticipating the moment I cross some line I don't see. The food here has changed me. I can see it in the mirror, whether I want to or not. My frame is broader now. Stronger. Muscle where bone once cut through skin. Even a layer of fat that protects instead of wasting away. Fuel makes a difference. It unsettles me every time I feel it.

“You’ll tear your shoulder again,” Korrin says. Her voice cuts through the rhythm, steady and precise.

“I’ll heal,” I answer, the words automatic.

“You’ll fall behind.”

That makes me stop. Not the threat of pain. I have lived with worse. But falling behind has always been the one thing you cannot do. On Turkana IV, if you stumbled, if you slowed, if you dropped your guard even for a heartbeat, you were dead. Or worse, you were left to die. Falling behind meant being useless, and useless bodies did not last long. The fear of it claws through me harder than any torn shoulder could. I let my fists drop, chest heaving, eyes locked on the bag.

“You keep fighting ghosts,” she says into the quiet. “One day a real one is going to look back. You will need something more than your fists.”

The words hang between us. I let the silence stretch. My shoulders twitch with the urge to hit again, to drown her voice under the rhythm of impact. But I do not move. When I speak at last, the words scrape up raw, bitter, younger than I am. “I don’t trust anyone.”

“I am not asking you to.” That makes me turn. I look at her, really look. She does not wear the marks of hunger and dirt the way I do. Her face carries something else. Lines from laughter, the soft weight of love. She takes that compassion and turns it on me, and it makes my skin prickle, my body brace, waiting for the sharpness that should follow. It never comes. Not from her.

The realisation hits like a blow I cannot block. There are easier cadets than me. Softer, quicker to smile, already fitting the mould. She could spend her time on them. Instead she keeps showing up here, stepping into my silence, knowing I prefer to be left alone.

The thought twists inside me. A spark I do not want, hope I cannot name. That maybe she cares. “You are still here,” I say, quieter than I mean.

Korrin nods once. Simple. Certain. “So are you.”


---

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

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