Patterns in the Silence: Part VIII - What Follows You Home

Posted on Wed Sep 17th, 2025 @ 3:09pm by Sergeant Jace Morven

2,288 words; about a 11 minute read

Forward Deployment Zone, first weeks of the Dominion War, 2373

The rain hits sideways. It cuts across the line, fast and sharp, soaking through seams and pooling behind the plates. The mud is ankle-deep, thick and slow, pulling at the soles of our boots like it wants to keep something. We keep moving. One step, then the next. Head low, gear tight, rifles ready.
Artillery hasn’t stopped. Might have been hours. I don’t track time anymore. The rhythm is constant now, no gaps between the strikes. Just pressure in the air and tremors through the ground. Nothing to measure it by except the tension in your jaw or how often your ears ring.

The sky’s gone. All I can see overhead is smoke, firelight, and movement I do not trust. Something’s burning on the higher ridge to the west. Could have been a supply line. Could have been ours.

Tho’s shouting again. Not for the first time. I can hear the usual words, just not clearly. His voice is a shape more than anything useful. He’s pacing too close behind us, volume too high, arms cutting the air like he is trying to direct shuttle traffic. He does that when he’s losing control of the situation. Fills the space with sound. Tries to drown out what he does not want to feel.

I know where everyone is. Banik is two metres off my right, checking flank coverage. Martinez is half a step ahead of me, crouched slightly to keep profile low. Raimi is left side, moving sharp, with one eye always on the perimeter. Kerren is furthest out, adjusting his grip too often, but holding the line. We’re spread enough to move but tight enough to regroup fast. This isn’t the first time we’ve moved under fire. We know how to read each other.

Then something shifts.

It’s in the silence between the shell bursts. Something in the air that doesn’t belong. The movement ahead is too still, too clean. It is the kind of gap that reads like a setup. One of those things you learn to notice before someone explains it to you. A cold patch in your field.

I raise my left hand. Closed fist. Signal for hold. Downward motion. I do not speak. There is no need, we know the hand signals, had plenty of practice. Martinez slows and crouches. Banik freezes where she is, already close to the ground in cover. Raimi checks her corners, against the rockface. Kerren leans just slightly to the side, weight shifting to his back foot as he too moves low. Terrow, brand new and never had to face Tho's pit, looks confused but obeys the signal as well.

Tho keeps going. Still shouting. Still cutting the air with his arms. He doesn’t see the signal. Or he sees it and ignores it. Either way, he stays too high and too loud. His position is obvious now. No cover. No warning.

I do not call out. None of us do. We all make the same decision, though no one says it. The kind you do not need to explain. The space between a second and a second, where a choice gets made.

Then the shot lands. It is not a crack or a snap. It is a short, hard sound, like atmosphere ripping. A burn across the visual field. The blast takes him high on the side of the head. For a moment, there is a smear of light, and then the top half of his skull is just not there. What is left hits the ground. The sound he makes is brief. Involuntary. Gone by the time the body finishes falling.
No one screams. No one breaks formation.

I check the angles again. Confirm we are not exposed. Martinez keeps eyes forward. Raimi checks the power levels on her phaser rifle without comment. Banik shifts slightly to cover the arc. Kerren adjusts his aim. Terrow is looking at us with wet eyes, but face set grimly. We keep moving. Quiet. Focused. There is nothing left to say.

They follow me without a word. There is no order given, no rank on my collar to make it official, but when I move forward they fall into step. It is not something I think about at the time. They want to survive and I am already pushing us through the mud, so they come with me. That is enough.

The trenchline is wrecked. What used to be walls are bodies now, some piled, some scattered, some turned into cover by people who had nothing else. I register it without letting it slow me down. The smell is thick and metallic and I know it will stick to my skin for days, but I keep going. My boots find the ground where they need to, steady and controlled. Blood soaks into the fabric at my knees and cuffs. I do not break stride.

The rifle answers when I need it. Short bursts, precise, no waste. When that stops being the right tool I change to the knife without hesitation. There is no fury in the movement. No need for it. Close quarters makes sound dangerous and the blade is the answer. Quick when it can be, brutal when it cannot. I move through it without pause, and for a moment I notice how natural it feels. My grip is steady, my aim exact, and the shift from one target to the next is as easy as drawing breath. That is the part that unsettles me, not in the moment but inside myself. I know it is not supposed to feel like this. I know most people would hesitate. I do not. I keep going because that is what there is to do.

By the time we reach the bunker line I have stopped tracking how many bodies we have left behind. All I am watching is the terrain ahead, the timing of the shells, the weight of my breathing and the position of the squad around me. Martinez just to the front, Banik holding the flank, Raimi sharp on the left, Kerren adjusting too often but still on task. They are close enough to cover angles, far enough to avoid clustering. I push on first because someone has to. Knife in my hand, stance low, no sound. They know to follow.

Inside the bunker the space is narrow and fast. One Jem’Hadar drops with a cut across the throat, another with the point of the blade through the eye. There is no pause between them, no thought to weigh what it means. I move because that is what keeps us alive. When the others catch up I am already inside, catching my breath, hands wet and uniform soaked through. I look up, give them a single nod, and speak only what matters. “The next one’s bigger.” It is not warning or reassurance. It is just the truth. They understand it, and that is enough.

Vasran goes down hard in the mud, a twist in her knee when the trench wall gives way. She tries to get up and I can see the pain lock across her face. We do not have time to stop. I pull her arm over my shoulder and lift her weight. She is lighter than the pack I am already carrying, so it is just another shift, another load to balance. I keep my rifle in my right hand and move us forward. Step by step, never breaking stride. When we reach the fallback line I set her down carefully against the revetment and a medic is already there, kit open, hands ready to work. I nod once and move back into position. She is not mine to hold anymore.

Later, when the shells start landing close again, Terrow freezes. His weapon is in his hands but I can see in his eyes that he is not here anymore. He has gone somewhere else, locked in the noise and the fire. The flank is open. I do not waste time trying to drag him out of it. I shift over, shoulder to shoulder with Raimi now, and cover the gap myself. I fire until the space is secure again. When Terrow starts moving later, when the noise recedes and he finds his hands again, I do not speak to him about it. There is no point. Words do not keep you alive here. Actions do.

I never raise my voice. I do not order anyone forward or back. I move, and they see it, and they match me. That is enough. Martinez stays at my side most of the way through. I catch them watching me in the middle of the fight. There is a look in their eyes I cannot fully name. Horror at what I am doing, maybe, but also something else. Hope that if they keep close enough I will find a way through for all of us. I do not think about which of those it is. I only register that they are still beside me.

Back in camp I sit down by my pack, away from the others. I keep the mug in my hands, steam rising as the rain falls outside the perimeter. Mint and sugar. Hot water. Not leaves, not anything real, just powder from a pouch, replicated and rough, but it does the job. I do not explain why I make it. I do not offer it to anyone else. It is not for them. It is for me. A ritual. A tether. Something to mark the difference between moving and stopping. Between what I just did out there and what I need to be able to do tomorrow.

The taste makes me think of Dannic. She was the first person who made me believe I had a choice, that I did not have to be only what Turkana had made me. I hope she is safe. The thought is brief, but I hold it anyway.

No one asks me about Tho. They all saw it, and silence is enough. What I do notice is that they follow me now. Not with questions, not with hesitation. Just movement, one after another, keeping pace when I step forward. It catches me off guard because I never thought of myself as someone others would choose to follow.

I do not know what to do with it. I know how to fight, how to clear a path, how to keep myself alive long enough to reach the next line. I do not know how to carry whatever it is they are looking for when they watch me. I wonder if I can give it, if there is even anything in me that can meet that weight. The thought sits heavy, unfamiliar, and I have no answer for it.

USS Guinevere 2388

I lie flat on the bunk with my hands on my chest and after a moment I register that one finger is moving against the fabric. The small motion brings me back to myself. I hold on to it. I stay quiet otherwise. On Turkana, if you cried out or shook yourself awake, someone noticed and someone used it, so I learned early to keep still, and it has never left me.

The memories still come. They are not dreams. They arrive like intrusions, sudden and without warning, sound and weight and smell layered so deep they feel like they belong inside me now. They do not go. They just wait until they choose to surface again.

I open my eyes because I know it is time. I have a new squad, my own this time, and with Sergeant on my collar it feels heavier than it should. With it come expectations I am not sure I can meet. A leader is supposed to inspire, to make people believe. I know how to act, how to fight, how to keep bodies moving under fire. I do not know if I can give them more than that. The gap between what I can offer and what they might expect feels too wide, and I do not yet know what it will cost.

I sit up slowly and take stock the way I always do. My hands are steady enough when I move them. My back holds straight without effort. My breathing stays even. Nothing pulls me off balance. Everything reads close enough to control, and that is what I need to pass for today.

I dress without speaking. The uniform is clean but I know every place where I have had to repair it. A seam reinforced at the shoulder. A cuff stitched back together after a tear. The fabric is standard issue but it carries the marks of twenty years in the Ground Forces, small signs of the places I have already been. Pulling it on is like stepping into a record of what I have survived. Now it carries a Sergeant’s insignia. I do not know what I should feel about that. I never cared about rank. I went where I was told, obeyed orders until I couldn’t, and when I broke them it was never because of principle or ideals. It was because some things you cannot overlook. And each time, I paid the price.

Before I stand I stop for one breath and I put the memories back where they need to be. Not gone, not solved, but set aside. They will come again. They always do. But for now, they are out of sight.

---

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

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