Patterns in the Silence: Part V - What They Took, What They Gave
Posted on Sat Sep 13th, 2025 @ 12:14pm by Sergeant Jace Morven
2,345 words; about a 12 minute read
USS Guinevere, 2388
The bunk takes me when I let it. Too soft, too level. Nothing digs into my back, nothing shifts under me. It holds me steady in a way I am not used to. I lace my hands behind my head and stare at the ceiling. Grey panels, clean lines, strips of light set even. No cracks to track. No shadows hiding anything. It should be comfort, but it presses back down like weight.
I should eat. My body wants it, gnawing in me. Fuel keeps the machine running in a way, it’s...logical in its simplicity. Eat, drink, breathe, move...take what they give you and give nothing back that they can hurt you with. At least parts of me still feel that, even if I know it isn’t that clean-cut.
The mess is not far, just a corridor, but my chest feels unsteady. The thought of people, voices, eyes, is too much. Better to stay here. Just until this passes. Today has already cut deep. Meeting Colonel Llewelyn. Tall, lined, a proper officer. The kind of man who looks at you and seems to know what you are before you say a word. He offered me a squad like it was nothing, but watched me as if he was testing if I knew what that meant. I told him the truth. I cannot inspire troopers with words. I do not know how to be the kind of leader who makes others believe. All I can do is stand and fight. He watched me the whole time, eyes steady, waiting. Time will tell if he is the kind of man worth following.
Then Doctor Vale. The way she moves, you can tell she knows how to fight and how to hold her ground. She turned her back to me once. A show of trust, though it cost her. Smiled near me, honest, never false. Not soft, but steady. She reminds me of Dannic in small ways. Someone who knows how to handle troopers, how to handle silences, how to handle me. That matters. She matters.
I close my eyes. If I do not follow the memories down, they will bleed into sleep, twisted, too sharp to carry. Better to let them come while I am awake.
Earth – Ground Forces Training Base Echo-5, 2369
It rains the day I arrive. Not the kind of rain I imagined when people spoke of it, soft and clean. This is hard rain, cold enough to sting, sharp enough to raise goosebumps across my arms. I tilt my head back and let it run down my face, filling my mouth until I almost choke. On Turkana, you could never drink the water that fell from the sky, too much pollution from a scorched surface. Water was rationed in mouthfuls, fought over, hoarded. Here it pours as if no one cares how much is wasted. I love it. Not because it is gentle, but because it is endless.
The shuttle bay is deafening. Orders barked, boots striking steel, engines tearing the air. There are no Federation flags, no speeches about exploration or peace. The irony cuts deep. This training yard feels closer to Turkana than anything else I have seen in the Federation.
No one asks names that first week. Only ranks. Only unit numbers. Mine is Echo-23. That is enough for them. For me, it is a theft. Jace was the first thing I claimed as mine. The first time I decided what I was called. Here it is ripped away, replaced with a number shouted over the noise. They do not know what they take from me, but I do.
The days grind until time itself wears thin. Wake before dawn, then run until lungs burn. Eat as many calories as you can, to make sure you do not fall later when there is no time to eat. Train until my body shakes. Sleep until the whistle drags me up again. Weakness is not spoken here. Fear is not admitted. You smother it or you are gone, shouted out by people who are trying to find out who will stand when the fighting is happening around you.
I watch the others, who complains and who bites down on the feeling. Some curse under their breath as they collapse, some cry when they think no one hears. A few are simply gone by the next morning, bunk stripped bare, kit folded, faces never seen again. They were not built for this, the reality not living up to the image they expected. They still thought pain was unfair, that exhaustion was an excuse. Turkana taught me different. Exhaustion was constant. Hunger was constant. You learned to move anyway or you did not survive. Compared to that, this feels almost merciful. At least here the rules are known, spoken. At least here there is food at the end of the day, a place to put your head where no one will grab you in the night.
I strip the drills down to what matters. Clean strikes, quick finishes, no wasted movement. On the range I keep my breathing even when the phaser hums in my hands and the lines falter in the holosuite. In sparring, I close fast and end it before the other person knows what happened. The instructors nod, call it efficient. The recruits mutter cold. I stay quiet. Words mean nothing here. Only action counts.
I start to understand that this place has no room for trust, no room for anything except following orders. No one is going to ask me things, the expectation is all there is. Whatever I began to learn at SEPP, whatever softness tried to take root, does not belong here. This place rewards the same instincts Turkana did: obedience, violence. It feels less like growth and more like going back to what I always was. Only my small choices matter. I can make silence different than I used to before, make them their own communication.
Sometimes, when the barracks settle into quiet and I lie awake staring into the dark, I hear Korrin’s voice, about what I could have been. I shut it down before it can take hold. There is no space for it here. I made the choice.
The next day, during live-blade drills, a recruit comes in wild. Too wide, too fast. I step inside his strike and catch him across the face with the hilt. His nose breaks clean, a snap of bone and breath. He drops because of the shock of pain. I reset my stance. No anger, no triumph. Just movement. The instructors praise the reflex. I nod once, wipe the sweat from my palms, and line up again.
And for a moment, before I bury it, the thought pushes through like a blade edge. Is being someone who hurts others all I am? Is this…all I can be?
I already know the answer, there’s no point in dwelling. Here, it’s useless, a weakness. We're being trained not for if, but when something goes wrong and how to protect others against it by stepping in front of it.
We're being trained for war.
USS Guinevere, 2388
The walk to the mess is not long, but I make it deliberate. Shoulders square, pace steady, eyes forward. Neutral. Not hurried, not slow. The kind of rhythm that answers questions before they are asked, that tells anyone watching there is nothing here worth stopping. It has become habit, as much armour as the uniform on my back.
The trick is always to make it seem like you have a set destination.
Even with my expression set, I see more than I show. Two junior officers walk close together, voices pitched low, one nudging the other with an elbow until their shoulders shake with laughter they are trying to keep quiet. A science crewman hurries past with a PADD in her hands, her eyes fixed on the scrolling display as if the numbers in her hands matter more than the corridor beneath her feet. A nurse cuts through the flow of people with her hair tied back and her stride quick, carrying herself like someone already needed elsewhere. I take it all in, store it, note it. It is the day to day on a Starfleet vessel, no tension underneath. People just getting on with their lives, their duties, their work.
The mess meets me with warmth and sound. The clatter of trays, the mix of voices rising and falling, the steady hum of the replicators at work. I step to one and give the request I always do: recommended meal, current profile. The machine hums and delivers what it decides my body requires. Protein cut into strips, plain grains, steamed greens without seasoning. Balanced and predictable, familiar on what it is. I also get a glass of water with it. I take the plate to a table against the wall and sit alone. I begin eating without thought. The food does what it is meant to do, filling the body and keeping it moving.
I could have asked for mint tea. I usually do. I keep to that, or water, nothing else. Mint tea is the one indulgence I allow myself. Not because it is rare, but because it is mine. The warmth in my hands, the first breath of steam, the sharp clean taste that cuts through everything else. It grounds me, and I do like the taste, the freshness that lingers after, the feeling I get when I drink it.
But not today. Today I will not waste it. To drink it now would sour it. Mint tea is the one thing I trust to steady me, and I will not give it to a day like this. The irony is not lost on me. It is exactly when I am unsteady that I need it most, yet when I am most resistant to it.
So I sit, and I eat. Around me the room folds into itself with ease, voices overlapping, laughter breaking, crew sliding naturally into rhythm with each other. I sometimes wish I could bridge that gap, tear down the wall and understand how to be part of it.
I once had people who could translate the social language for me, who filled in the silences and folded me into it. I...miss that right now.
Echo-5, Phase Two – Squad Ops, Mid-2369
Phase Two. They call it squad operations. No more running until our lungs tear or sparring until our hands split just to prove we can keep moving. Now it is five bodies bound by orders, five phaser rifles meant to sweep angles together, five sets of boots trying to find a rhythm that makes us something greater than we are alone. They talk about trust, about coordination, about the strength of a unit. I know the words. I do not feel them.
Redwood. That is our name. Five of us, moving through woodland thick with mist. The holosuite paints it sharp enough to taste, the air laced with the metallic tang of ozone from scattered phaser fire earlier in the drill. The cabin squats ahead, one door, two narrow windows, shadows pooled under the overhang. As we close in I measure it the way I always do. Where a muzzle will sit. Where a body might drop. Where hesitation will kill.
We reach the door and Redwood falters. A shift in their steps, a pause in their breath, eyes cutting toward one another for the nod, the signal, the clean textbook entry. They hesitate. The danger rises in me like heat. On Turkana hesitation was death. If you waited, you were already gone. You moved, or you did not live.
So I move. One stride, then two, crossing the threshold before the noose can close. My phaser rifle buzzes against my shoulder, orange light flashing as the beam catches the first target centre-mass. A second beam spits quick from the muzzle and the next man drops, clutching at a gut wound that only exists in the holosuite. My eyes sweep the corners, rifle already finding the angles. By the time Redwood steps in, the room is finished.
The comm cuts sharp in my ear. “Echo-23, you broke formation protocol again.” The sergeant’s voice is tight with frustration. I breathe evenly, phaser low, eyes scanning out of habit. “You were told to coordinate, Echo-23. Not act alone.”
Behind me Redwood spills through. Ashen, Echo-12, his face flushed, eyes hot, voice raw. “I had it,” he snaps, stepping closer as if to prove he means it.
I meet his stare. “You froze.” The words are flat, stripped of anything else. A part of me knows I could soften it, bend it into something he might accept, but I cannot. The truth is sharp because survival is sharp. Blunt it, and it kills you.
The sergeant cuts back in. “Teamwork isn’t optional.”
I hear the words but they do not make sense. Teamwork only works if everyone moves toward the same goal. If one falters, if one hesitates, the chain breaks. Hesitation is proof the goal is not shared, and that makes you dead weight. To me, there was no failure in moving. To them, there is failure in not waiting.
And so the wedge drives in deeper. I see it in the way Redwood looks at me when the helmets come off. In the silence that clings to them when we file out together. I know I am the reason for it, but I cannot name the shape of it. The Federation has its own language, spoken in glances, in jokes, in unspoken rules about when to wait and when to follow. I do not speak it. I do not even know how to start.
I was told this phase was about learning trust. All I seem to be learning is how far I sit outside it.
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Sergeant Jace Morven
Platoon Sergeant, Alpha Squad
Federation Ground Forces
USS Guinevere
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