Aftermath

Posted on Sat Nov 22nd, 2025 @ 7:36am by Lieutenant JG Elen Rell & Sergeant Jace Morven

2,903 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Pilot - "The Gate"
Timeline: set after 'Engineering Report'

Jace never seemed like he listened to scuttlebutt. He kept the same expression whether he was thinking or listening. That was survival. Give nothing away that could be read as preference. That had been carved into him for as long as he could remember. His weight shifted slightly, boots braced on the smooth deck plating. Hands loose at his sides, but not relaxed. Just ready. Still. Like always. He didn’t twitch when the word came up, didn’t react. But he registered it.

Vaporised. That was the word they used.

The barracks were still half-lit from standby mode, overheads cycling back to full power. Ground Forces personnel moved through the space…most still in half-armour or undershirts, tension written across tired shoulders. Voices ran low, pulled between mission buzz and that sharp edge of aftermath. Accomplishment, yes. But tired. Unsettled. He didn’t join them. Just walked out. No one noticed when he left. They kept talking and their voices faded with distance.

The woman…the Chief Engineer had died during transit. An explosion, maybe. Or a gas leak. Some systems failure. No body. Just a note on the casualty list. He had never met her. Not once.

Doesn’t matter.

His mind had already gone somewhere else. Someone else.

She would feel it.

He moved through the ship with purpose. Past the corridor junction where she liked to stand with a tea mug in hand, thumb resting just under the rim. Past the alcove near Deck Eleven where she'd once installed a hand-knit toolkit hanger, bright green and crooked. Past the portside ladder that still smelled faintly of solder.

No luck.

He stopped. Shifted his stance. Boots squared, the way he always did before breaching a door. Then: "Computer, locate Lieutenant Elen Rell."

"Lieutenant Rell is on deck twenty, Jeffries tube three-zero-nine, junction two."

Of course she is.

Jace took a slow breath. Deck Twenty had belonged to Magnus Daire. They’d never spoken. But Jace had seen enough to recognise another survivor, just one who had adapted differently.

According to Elen, Magnus hadn’t been ready to be seen. The quartermaster had been transferred off the ship months ago. Still, stepping foot on this deck felt wrong. Like crossing into a space that hadn’t yet forgotten its last occupant. Like walking into absence. He pushed the thought aside.

Doesn’t matter.

The mission was clear.

Find Elen.

The turbolift doors slid open with a familiar hydraulic hiss. He stepped out into a corridor lit in standard Federation brightness ….too clean, too quiet, the kind of silence that followed damage control. It smelled faintly of ozone, burnt insulation, and coolant. Someone had patched a wall panel recently. The sealant line was still tacky near the base.

He walked, slower now. Not hesitation. Just calculation. The Jeffries tube access hatch sat recessed near a maintenance panel, no more conspicuous than a storage locker. Compact. Functional. Designed for engineers, not infantry. The opening was narrow, bordered by curved aluminium, with locking handles along the rim.

It wasn’t made for anyone with shoulders. Or bulk. Or history.

Truth was, he didn’t like tight spaces. Not like this. Too many hours hiding in shafts and crawlspaces, curled up with a stolen weapon and breath held until it hurt. Too many times dragged out from corners that didn’t stay hidden.

He crouched low, the movement mechanical, efficient. One palm braced against the cool surface as he pulled the hatch open. His jaw locked. He didn’t hesitate. Just moved.

The crawl was tight. His shoulders brushed both sides. Elbows dragged. Boots scuffed against conduits. The air inside was dry, recycled too many times, faintly metallic. A tangle of EPS lines and coolant relays lined the walls, some flickering with residual power. Cable bundles cinched to the ceiling by old ties sagged just enough to brush the back of his neck. Metal pressed cold along his spine.

But eventually, the path widened. Just enough space to shift. To move faster. Still quiet. Not silent. The deck plating and combat boots made sure of that. But he could do quiet. He turned a corner. Crawled forward. Junction two.

And there she was. She sat with her back against the wall, legs drawn up tight, arms wrapped around them like they were the only thing holding her in place. A shawl, probably meant to cover her curls , was clenched between her fingers. She hadn’t tied it back. The fabric twisted in her hands instead, tangled in dark spirals and frayed tension. Her curls had come loose from whatever pinning they’d had earlier, falling in damp strands against her face.

She didn’t make a sound, but her breath hitched. Shoulders tight. Chest rising too fast, falling too shallow. The kind of breathing you did when everything inside was trying to stay small. Crying without sound, like someone trained not to let it out. Then a breath tore through her…rough, ragged, uncontrolled. “Jace...” she whispered. Her voice cracked around it. Her red-rimmed eyes found him...wide, dark, wet with tears and heavy with something wordless. Panic. Guilt. She shivered, pressing one hand to her forehead like it might hold her thoughts in place. “I-I can’t...it’s...”

Jace moved without hesitation. He saw the tremble, the way her jaw locked, then buckled. The way her eyes screwed shut like the dark behind her lids might be safer than looking. He’d seen that look before. Not here. Not on her. He had seen Elen Rell with a burned hand and still somewhat smiling...he had seen her practically dancing with joy, or thrumming with a thousand thoughts spilling out of her mouth. He had never seen her overwhelmed. But he had seen other Betazoids, full or partial, buckling under it. Back in the war, when minds broke open and the walls that kept you upright cracked under the weight of everything.

Terrow had that look sometimes.

He knew her empathic ability was faint. A diluted inheritance, barely there. Nurtured by nothing, buried beneath noise and starship metal. But now it was rearing, raw and wild. Like a storm breaking just under her skin.

He crouched in front of her, slow and deliberate. Close, but not too close, as if approaching something that could be startled to lash out or retreat. Then he reached for her wrists. Not her hands....not the soft, shaking palms, but the steadier bone and muscle beneath. His grip was firm. Not cruel but final. There was no option in it. He held them, watched her face. His own heart rate steady, not above baseline even with the crawl to get to her. “Elen.” His voice didn’t soften. “Breathe.”

She pulled in a breath, ragged and shaking. Eyes still screwed shut. “Loud…” she whispered. The sound barely made it out…breath across wire, static-thin and breaking.

“Focus on me,” Jace said, with a steady voice. Not loud, just...level. Because he knew she needed order, but not a Sergeant. She needed...whatever it was he was to her.

She tried. She opened her eyes. The light felt like a migraine just under the skin. Her jaw ached. Her breath hitched again. But she looked at him.

Focus on me.

She did. Not perfectly. Not easily. But she held his eyes, even when more tears blurred her own. Her mouth twisted. Her shoulders shook. Another sob cracked out of her before she could stop it. But she was focused on him, and her breathing, so jagged it had nearly lost rhythm, began to settle. Not back to normal but to something she could stay inside without fracturing further.

He’s quiet. She felt him, her mind plucking at him. She tried to control it, but control was a knot of yarn, twisted in on itself so that every strand tugged tightened the knot further. Not empty. Not blank. Just… Still. Like cooled metal. Like the moments before warp. Like a sound drawn inward and held, not silenced, just contained. He doesn’t ripple, he doesn’t broadcast. She felt him the way she always had…not like a person exactly, but like a structure. Like marble in shadow. Like something you could brace against in a ship that wouldn’t stop shaking.

And for a moment, a flicker, there was more. Not a word. Not an emotion. Just the sense of something dark and quiet standing between her and the pain spilling down from sickbay, the fragments leaking through walls and vents and psychic static. A boundary made of will. A sentinel. Then it was gone. Pulled back before she could find shape in it. Only the stillness remained. And for the first time since the alarms stopped and the fire suppressed and the silence came and the debrief and her own healed cuts…it felt safe.

She sobbed. Not from grief, not now. This was so much different. She sobbed from relief as the emotions she had been feeling off everyone quieted down. Her brow softened. Her fingers unclenched. She let out a breath that didn’t shatter.

Then the sadness hit, pulling her into its icy depths. It spread inside of her, racing along her veins. “She…” Her voice caught, staggered. She swallowed. Her mouth was too dry and too wet all at once, as if the crying hadn’t decided where to settle. She shifted her left arm. Gave it the smallest tug. He let go as if he had always meant to, as if she was in control. She used her sleeve to wipe her face. No gentleness. No care. Just instinct. She sniffed. Pulled herself in tighter. Let her heels press against the floor again. “Jalay...Prinnet...she knew. She must have known.” The words didn’t spill...they had to be pulled out, one at a time. “She saved everyone. She knew it was the end and she...she stayed.” Her voice cracked on stayed. Broke, not like glass, but like rope giving out strand by strand. “She shouldn’t have had to. She was...she was the best of us.”

She’d survived everything. The Occupation. The resistance. The long, long after. And she died here. On a Federation starship. When things were finally better. When she laughed more. When she stopped standing like she was waiting to be dismissed.

She stayed. She saved us.
And I didn’t do anything.
It should have been me.

She didn’t say it. She never would. But the thought was there, hollow and aching, for a moment. “It’s so unfair.”

Jace didn’t move at first. He stayed crouched, watching her. The sobbing had faded now. Her breathing was slower. The worst of it was behind he…not gone, just no longer breaking her apart, her walls tightened up enough for her to protect herself again. In the quiet, he shifted. Not abruptly. No noise, no sudden motion. Just leaned back, bracing his spine against the opposite wall of the Jeffries tube. His boots planted. Arms loose across his knees. Still facing her.

Not close. Not far. Just there. He watched the way she curled in on herself. The way her shoulders trembled with held breath. The way she held the shawl now not like a shield, but like a thread she was trying to follow back out of the dark. Then, after a moment, he spoke. “Jalay made a choice.” His voice was flat. Not cold. Just grounded. Measured. Not trying to soften anything. “It’s all we ever get.” He didn’t fill the silence that followed. “She chose to stay. Chose to save people.” He watched her face, not looking away...just fixed. “That’s the best kind of ending there is.”

Elen looked down. Her fingers rubbed at the fabric in her lap, absently smoothing the corner of the shawl she had been gripping like a lifeline. The knit had stretched in places, tugged thin by hands that didn’t know where else to go. She didn’t speak for a moment. Just let her gaze settle on the yarn, her own work, the pattern she could no longer remember how she started. Then, slowly, she looked back at him. Something in her expression changed. Less raw. Still aching, but focused now. Grounded. As if what he had said had settled somewhere deeper. “I think that’s what mattered to her, too,” she said softly. “The choice.”

She wiped at her face again. Her sleeve caught on her lip. Her nose was still red. But her voice was steadier now. Not strong. Not yet. But whole. “I… I came here because I couldn’t take it anymore. The emotions. From everyone. It was like... like trying to breathe through wet fabric, and it was all layered. Guilt and sadness and shock and... paperwork. Like actual forms being filled out while people were crying.” Her voice cracked, but she kept talking. “I tried to keep it together. I think I did? At least until after the debrief. I didn’t cry in front of the Commodore. Or Cressida. Which, honestly, might be the most adult thing I’ve ever done.” She let out a half breath, close to a laugh, or her attempt at it…she failed. Miserably. So she looked down again, her hands worrying the shawl.

“And then I came here, like a coward. And I thought maybe if I just sat somewhere small enough, I wouldn’t feel everyone else anymore. That maybe the metal would buffer it.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “And it sort of did. Until it didn’t.” She looked up at him again. Not expecting anything. Just giving him the rest. “There was this moment,” she said. “We had...I hadn’t even left the room. Her body wasn’t even cold.” Her mouth twisted a little, grief learning to tug at her earlobe. Her tone didn’t rise in anger. It dulled into...she wasn’t sure what. Not disbelief. Displacement? Dis...something. It had felt raw. It had felt cold. “And I think the Commodore basically appointed a new Chief.” She grimaced, fingers still restless. “I mean. I get it. I do. The engineering advisor outranks me, outranks all of us left. He’s experienced. He’s... good. I like him. I do. It makes sense.” She exhaled through her nose. A fast, fluttering breath. “But it felt so...bureaucratic. Like there’s a checklist, and someone just ticked the next box before she had even been properly grieved...and the fact it had to happen in that moment, just....” She trailed off, closing her eyes. She shook her head gently, curls brushing against her damp cheek. “I know it’s not fair to feel that. But I do.”

Jace stayed where he was. Still braced against the wall. Still watching her. She gave him all of it...the words she’d been holding back, the guilt, the disbelief, the ache that came not from what happened but from how fast it happened. How the moment of death bled into procedure.

He didn’t interrupt. He let her spill the words out, let the hurt, confusion and pain drain from the wound.

He had seen it before. It was what happened. People died. Positions changed. The machine kept turning. Sometimes you were on your feet when they handed out the next orders. Sometimes your boots were still wet.

Everyone was replaceable. That was the system. That was the cost.

And Elen, for all her brilliance, her care, her spark, wasn’t ready to step into a role like that. Not yet. Not the way Starfleet defined readiness. Not with a heart like hers. But he didn’t say that.

He didn’t say anything at all.

He just stayed where he was. Watching her. Breathing steady. Letting her know she wasn’t alone in it. Listening, because…that seemed to matter more. Listening.

Finally, she took a shuddering breath. She bowed her head and brought the shawl up to cover her face. Breathed. Then lowered it and looked at him. "Jace...can I..." she looked down, frowning, worrying her sore-looking lip. "Can you sit next to me?"

Jace gave a small nod and shifted onto his knees. It wasn't easy to maneuver in the tight space, but he did, until he sat next to her. There was a brief moment when he settled, staring at the wall. And he felt her. Quiet, careful, like an animal inching closer to a campfire. He felt her shoulder against his, her leg against his. And then the weight of her head against his shoulder.

He didn't move. Didn't change his breathing. But he didn't move away from her, which was his own way to show it was okay. She hadn't asked. But she wasn't trying to take more than he could offer.

"Thanks," she whispered, her voice raw, but no longer catching with tears.

He swallowed at the words, closing his eyes for a moment. "Any time, Elen."

---

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

Lt. jg Elen Rell
Engineer
USS Guinevere

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