Glimpses

Posted on Mon Jun 30th, 2025 @ 6:32pm by Lieutenant JG Elen Rell & Sergeant Jace Morven

3,410 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: Holodeck, USS Guinevere
Timeline: Early 2389

The holodeck simulation flickered softly around her, desert heat translated into ambient warmth on her skin. It smelled faintly of iron-rich dust and dry stone…someone had gotten the sensory feedback subroutines just right. Or close enough that her brain believed it.

She bounced once on the balls of her feet. This was fine. Everything was fine.

Except that Elen Rell was not a fighter. Never had been. She’d scraped through self-defence at the Academy with the grace of a PADD sliding off a tilted desk. Most of her martial prowess could be summed up with “trip over your own boots, then recalibrate the floor.”

Still. Here she was. Mars streets underfoot. Holo-opponent locked in and waiting. She’d chosen the environment, after all. Familiar ground. Home-shaped nostalgia, which was probably cheating, but she’d decided if she was going to get metaphorically punched in the face, she’d rather do it under a pink sky.

She exhaled slowly and raised her hands again, elbows loose, shoulders hunched a little too high. “Okay, let’s try this again,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Just block. Just move. Just don’t flail like a short-circuited maintenance droid.”

The hologram didn’t answer. Just watched her. Waiting.

Elen took a breath. Felt her heart racing a beat faster than it needed to. Focus. She could do this. Not well, necessarily. But she could try.

And for her, trying....sincerely, scrappily, off-balance and all, was its own kind of courage. Besides, she had wanted to do this. To learn.

Jace Morven stood nearby, one shoulder leaned against a rust-red column of simulated stone, a mug of mint tea cupped between his hands. The scent rose warm and sharp in the dry air…real mint, fresh-cut from the plant Alina had given him almost a year ago. He’d kept it alive. Tended it. Quiet mornings and ship’s night, whispering to it sometimes without meaning to. A habit. A ritual. The tea was sweetened, just enough. The one indulgence he allowed himself…not tactical, not nutritional. Just his.

Across the simulated dust and stone, Elen moved in short bursts of motion, all wild energy and uncertain footing. Her stance was loose. Focus scattered. She wasn’t a fighter, not really, but she wanted to be less of a liability when it counted. That’s what she’d told him, anyway. She’d asked him for help.

He hadn’t said yes at first. Took months. She’d brought it up with that grin of hers, half-joking, half-serious. Then again. Then again. Eventually, she’d worn him down. The deal was one session. Just enough.

“Okay, okay...” she called between moves, half-laughing, off-balance but determined.

He didn’t reply. Just took another sip of tea. Watching. Still. Measuring. She wasn’t precise. But she was trying. Hard.

And in Jace’s world, that counted.

Elen shifted again, tried a punch, missed her own footing, stumbled a step, and caught herself with an exaggerated flourish of arms that ended in a mock-ready pose. She squinted at Jace across the simulated street, still leaning, still watching, still saying absolutely nothing.

“You’ve got that look again,” she said, breath catching between words but the grin never dimming. “The one that says ‘I could disarm five people before my tea goes cold.’”

She pointed at him, not accusingly...more like a dramatic stage cue. “Can you not stare like that while I flail? It’s deeply unnerving.” She paused. Then she rolled her shoulders, bouncing once on the balls of her feet. “You know, for someone who claims this is my session, you’re very judgey for a glorified spectator.” But there was no edge in her voice. Just that familiar spark…the one that flickered when she was nervous, but trying anyway. When she was inviting him in, in the only language she really knew: movement, words, warmth.

She didn’t stop moving. But her eyes flicked to him again. Waiting. Just a little.

He didn’t reply at first. Just raised an eyebrow and took a slow sip of tea. The fresh sweetness of mint filled his mouth: sharp, grounding, real.

He swallowed. Then, levelly: “You’re telegraphing your moves. Keep your shoulders still.”

“Huh.” Elen paused mid-step, adjusting her stance with a thoughtful frown. “Okay, yeah, I can feel that. Shoulder thing makes a difference.”

She pivoted again, rolled her neck, then grinned over at him. “But seriously... there’s no proper gossip about you. Not the fun kind. Me, Cressida, Alina? Total unlocked PADDs with zero security clearance...footnotes, margin notes, occasionally badly redacted reports.” She jabbed the air for emphasis.

“But you?” She gave him a look: a little exaggerated, a little fond. “Career FGF Sergeant with a reputation like smoke and mirrors, a suspiciously intense relationship with mint tea, and a stare that could make a Vulcan nervous.”

A pause. She shifted her weight, hands still loose at her sides. “Come on, Jace. Give a girl something. Not secrets, just...you.”

She struck again, shoulders tight this time. The hit landed on the hologram. “Woo!” Her grin flashed bright. “Look out, I’m learning.”

“Better.” Jace looked down at the mug, letting the silence stretch.

He knew if he held it long enough, she’d fill it. That was her rhythm, words rising to meet quiet. She couldn’t help it. He didn’t mind. He’d come to expect it.

She’d spoken of her ADHD like it was a compass, not a flaw. Grounding. Breathing. Hyperfocus. Words he’d heard from counsellors before, but never heard right until she’d handed him gloves and taught him stillness didn’t always mean waiting.

“I’m dyslexic.”

The words landed like stone: simple, weighty, unmoved. No apology. No shame. Just a fact she’d asked for.

“What?” She stopped short, turning to face him fully. Her eyes went wide: not shocked, but lit up with that kind of oh you get when a puzzle piece clicks into place. “Seriously? That...makes sense, actually. Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen you with a PADD. But we don’t really cross workstreams so I never--”

She caught herself, blinked, then grinned, all warmth. “Wait, is it like a spectrum thing? How bad is bad? Do you do speech-to-text or just avoid reports like the rest of us?”

Her questions tumbled out, not demanding, just wanting. Wanting to know him better, because he’d offered it. And because for someone like her, information was intimacy.

“Bad enough,” he said, the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. More like the idea of one. He took another sip of tea. “Stay on the fight, Rell.”

“This isn’t a fight,” she said, ducking a strike with a grin. “This is cardio with consequences. Also, fun!” She half-turned toward him, still bouncing on her feet. “You do fun, right? Like, actual hobbies? Or is this it: mint tea, punching, and terrifying lieutenants?”

He thought about it. Engraving pieces of metal. He liked it. Putting things together. Tending the mint plant. But was it fun?

“This and that,” he said, eyes on her.

“Oooh, ‘this and that’....listen to you, Man of Mystery!” Elen laughed, stepping back. “Computer, reset. Delete fighter character one.” She bounced on her feet a moment longer, then turned toward him, eyes bright. “Alright then, Jace...keep your secrets.”

It was all teasing. She knew she’d already gotten more out of him than usual: a piece of himself, offered up. Dyslexia. Tough on a starship. He masked it well. Really well. How good was his memory to hold all the information needed to be a Sergeant?

Her brain, of course, already had a dozen ideas for what ‘this and that’ meant: maybe he knitted chainmail, or carved patterns into bulkhead panels. Maybe he collected rocks shaped like warp cores. But she let the guesses stay guesses. For now.

“You want a go?”

He took another sip of tea. The warmth steadied him. The mint was sharp and real. “We’re here for you,” he said, voice low, even. “Not me.” He was here because she'd asked. Because she'd shown up, again and again...loud, strange, kind, until he stopped bracing against it.

“Yeah, but...come on.” Elen held out her hands, palms open like she was making a case. “Safeties are on. It’s a holodeck, not a battlefield.” Her head tilted, eyes scanning him...not in challenge, but curiosity. “Just show me. Show me what you’re holding back, Trooper. What’s the worst that could happen?”

He sighed…not irritated, just resigned to the inevitable. His eyes stayed on her, studying. Measuring. She wasn’t bluffing. She’d keep coming back to it, the way she always did: gently, stubbornly, until he shifted.

A beat. More silence. Then: “Fine.”

“Okay, okay...” She grinned and clapped her hands, already backing up a few paces. “Computer, level seven. Urban environment. Close quarters.”

Three figures shimmered into place...classic holodeck bruisers: all muscle, minimal dialogue, the kind of holograms approximating people you picked when you didn’t want personality, just pressure. One held a steel pipe. Another cracked his knuckles. The third just stared, big and blank and looming.

Elen held up both hands like a peace offering. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to fight with me. I’d just slow you down.” A beat. Her eyes flicked over him, thoughtful. “I just....wanna see what it looks like when someone knows what they’re doing.”

There was no mockery in her voice. No push. Just that warm, restless kind of interest that came from wanting to understand something better. From wanting to understand him.

He didn’t move. Didn’t shift stance. Just looked at her. Then, with a slow blink and one raised brow:

“Really.”

Not disbelief. Not irritation. Just calm inevitability; the kind of tone used by someone who absolutely should have seen this coming but had chosen, against better judgment, to hope otherwise.

“Really,” Elen echoed, shameless and grinning, flopping down onto a nearby crate like she was settling in for a show. “You’re FGF! The kind of person they send in when things are exploding and on fire.”

She leaned her elbows on her knees, fingers lacing, her eyes bright and watchful. “Come on. It’s just a holodeck. No one’s dying. No one’s counting. I just wanna see what muscle memory looks like when it’s carved that deep.”

He stayed standing as the men advanced, finishing his tea. Eyes sharp, body relaxed except for the coil beneath the surface: reading movement, intent, angles. They moved aggressively. Thugs, the kind Elen had programmed without overthinking. Big, mean, meant to be threatening. She’d fought on level two. This was something else. She hadn’t planned it out fully. Just wanted to see what it looked like when instinct ran the show.

Jace didn’t move. Not until they came within reach.

He stood firm, eyes locked on the first thug closing in. Calm. Calculated. His fingers loosened, and the smooth metal mug slipped from his hand. It hit the street with a soft clink, mint leaves clinging inside like the last breath of calm.

He didn’t look toward her. Didn’t need to. She was watching…that was enough.

The thug lunged.

Jace’s right hand shot out, sharp and surgical. He gripped the man’s ear and yanked him forward, hard. A gasp, unbalance; and Jace’s knee drove into his stomach. The man folded.

Then the elbow, swift and clean, into the back of the neck. Impact. Collapse. One down.

Jace stepped over him without a word.

Elen blinked.

Not because she was frightened. Not even because she was shocked. But because... stars, that was fast. Her hands had stilled in her lap. Somewhere in her chest, her heart had skipped a beat…not panic. More like realignment.

That wasn’t brawling. That wasn’t even sparring. That was… efficient. Clean. Like cutting power to a system mid-feedback. Like solving violence the way you’d solve a cascading field failure: remove the threat, immediately and completely.

Her fingers tapped once against her thigh. Her brain, ever too-fast, caught on the rhythm of the moves. The way his elbow moved like it had a preset range. The way he didn’t check his work. He just knew. There was nothing in his face. No victory. No anger. Just....calibration.

One down.

Two to go.

She swallowed. Not hard. Just enough. Then, soft but audible: “Okay. Yeah. That’s...not cardio.”

She didn’t move from the crate. Didn’t call it off. She’d asked for this. Asked to see. But her eyes stayed on him now, really on him: not just the body in motion, but the ghost of the history it came from.

She wasn’t afraid. She was paying attention.

The second thug moved fast but not fast enough. The steel pipe swung high, a heavy arc meant to intimidate. Jace slipped low beneath it, fluid, tight, precise. He caught the weapon mid-swing. Not to stop it, but to redirect. Twisted it down with practiced force, breaking the momentum, stealing the threat from it. His other hand came up fast. A short-range strike; heel of the palm straight to the nose.

There was a crunch. The hologram staggered, pipe clattering from stunned fingers.

Jace didn’t hesitate. He seized the pipe before it hit the ground, turned, and used it, just one swing, sharp and clean. A strike meant to end it. Not flashy. Not cruel.

The second thug dropped, crumpling like a broken system folding in on itself.

Stillness returned, for a second.

Jace stood there, pipe in hand. Breathing even. No celebration. No aggression. Just... ready. Again. If he heard Elen’s soft breath behind him, he didn’t show it. But maybe he registered it. The way silence from her now meant something different.

Elen hadn’t ealised she had breathed. Not properly. Her gaze tracked every movement...the pipe, the redirection, the crunch. The sound echoed in her ribs. Not violent. Not savage. But final.

She didn’t flinch. But her fingers curled tighter on the crate’s edge. She exhaled, finally. Just a slow, startled breath. Then, softly, more to the air than to him: “...You don’t fight, you end systems.”

Not accusation. Not awe. Just...truth, observed.

Another beat passed. The third hologram stepped forward…taller, bulkier, slower. Meant to be the boss-level brute. Elen didn’t say a word now.

She watched.

And she waited.

Jace flung the pipe.

Not at the target but past him. A calculated discard. It clattered across the pavement, echoing just behind the third hologram.

The brute came in strong. Slower, heavier, but powerful. He swung.

A shifted of the body. The blow glanced off Jace’s temple. The safeties took the edge, but not the knowledge of the impact. It buzzed in his skin, a warning hum.

Jace didn’t stagger.

He stepped in instead. A sharp kick - low, fast - to the knee. The brute dropped with a grunt. Off-balance. Vulnerable.

Then Jace finished it. One booted foot to the temple. Precise. Final.

The hologram collapsed. Silent. Defeated.

Jace didn’t look down.

He stood still, chest rising with quiet control. His shoulders didn’t lift. His stance didn’t shift. Like he’d just completed a drill, not a fight. Just another sequence in a system he knew by heart.

He didn’t turn to Elen. Not right away.

But he knew she was watching.

And when he finally did, his expression was unreadable, except for the flicker of something. Small. Real.

He wasn’t sure why doing that in front of her felt different.

But it did.

Elen was leaning forward now, hands braced on her knees, eyes wide and bright. Her breath came fast…not from exertion, but from the charge in the air. Like the whole holodeck had pulled tighter around that last impact.

She didn’t speak right away. Didn’t fidget. Just...looked at him. Really looked. Then, softly, her voice threaded with awe and something else...not fear, not quite surprise…just truth: “Okay...that was...” she took a breath. “That was precision. You never told me you could move like that.” The smile that followed wasn’t teasing. It was real. Gentle. “And here I thought I was the chaotic one.”

“Not chaotic,” Jace said, stepping back. His eyes flicked to the mug, still lying where it had fallen. He bent to retrieve it, fingers curling around the cool metal. The scent of mint still clung faintly inside. He held it loosely as he straightened. “Violence applied with purpose isn’t chaos,” he added, quiet. “It’s control.”

Elen’s head tilted, absorbing that. Her brows lifted slightly, not mocking, just...surprised by the precision of his answer

“Right,” she said softly. “Like... circuit flow. Energy where it needs to go. Not more, not less.” She nodded, slowly, as if testing the thought. “Still kinda terrifying, but... yeah. I get that.” Her smile softened, almost tender. She knew she was walking a fine line; the tension beneath his calm still there, like ice over a rushing river. One wrong word and he’d be gone again. Distant.

She let the silence linger a moment before tilting her head. So,” she said. “Wanna go again?” It seemed safer not to ask more. She didn’t know much about him. No family, neutral Federation accent. You didn’t just ask things like that.

Jace shook his head once. “I’ve done it.” His voice was steady. No heat, no ego, just fact. He turned slightly, not quite walking away, but shifting his stance. Watching the space. The ghosts of movement still hung in the air. “You need to go again.”

She blinked. “What?” It wasn’t mockery, just surprise…an honest tilt of her head as she replayed his words. “Okay... but why? You already know what I can - can’t - do.” Her tone wasn’t bitter, just pragmatic, curious. She looked at him more carefully now, catching the subtle shift in his stance, the hum of focus still clinging to him like static.

“I kind of figured you’d throw me a few tips, hit me with some Trooper wisdom, and then...woo, off you go, never speak of it again.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed in a bar fight if you don’t learn more than fast feet and talk,” he said bluntly.

Then he turned to face her fully, eyes scanning her again. Measuring. Not if she was strong, he already knew she wasn’t a bruiser…but what could be built on speed, instinct, and will. She wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. He’d have to train around that. “I can teach you. Make sure you live long enough to run. Or call for backup.”

“Wow. Vote of confidence there,” Elen said, but her voice had softened, humour tucked behind something steadier. It was the look on his face, the weight in the air.

She didn’t bounce this time. Didn’t smirk or add a flourish. She just nodded…small, but certain. “Okay,” she said. “You’re not wrong.” She shifted on her feet, eyes scanning the space, as if she could catch faint shimmer of the holodeck if she focused. But it was perfect, like starship holodecks always were…unless your ship was in trouble. “But I get it…and yeah, I’ll go again.” Her mouth curved, not quite a smile....something smaller. Something real. “And you can stand there with your tea and terrifying stare and tell me how not to die like myself.”

Jace nodded once, slow and precise. “Then go. again”

His voice was even. Watchful.

“I’ll be here.”

----

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

&

Lieutenant Junior Grade Elen Rell
Acting Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Guinevere

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