Small Wins [2/6]

Posted on Sat Jun 21st, 2025 @ 11:55am by Sergeant Jace Morven

2,243 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: USS Guinevere
Timeline: 2388

Federation Forward Encampment, Chin’toka System Outpost — December 25, 2374

It rained in pulses here. Brief, acidic showers that left the soil steaming and the equipment corroded faster than it should. The bunker stank of old boots, field bandages thrown to the side as wounds were uncovered and healed by the medic, and the kind of desperation people stopped admitting out loud.

No one said the word Christmas, but the date was noted on the schedule pad. Someone, probably Kerren, who had never left New Zealand before joining the Federation Ground Forces and got care packages sent to starbases so that somehow they might reach him; had marked it in green grease pencil that had been in a previous care package (a gift from his sister, he liked drawing) above the mess rotation. A crooked tree had been rendered from ration packets and worn-out uniform, taped to the wall with surgical strips. Festive in the way a corpse in a uniform could be. An Earth tradition for some, though few now knew what it had truly meant.

Jace sat at the end of the common table, hunched forward with a ration heater warming his palms. The sleeves of his undershirt were rolled up, and his arms were scarred in ways that looked deliberate. Not decoration. Geography.

The squad was quieter than usual. Martinez hadn’t said a word since the report had come through.

The young. The green. The disposable.

Martinez was from Mars. The red dust in their veins, in the veins of their family. They had three siblings. Two sisters. One brother. Their little brother, squad leader of a group of fresh recruits that had been pushed through basic quicker than they would have been pre-war, had been assigned to a recon advance two clicks past where the 77th had just cleared. The intel had been bad. No air support. No medical evac. A stopgap tactic. Push the new ones forward, draw out the Jem’Hadar. Let them bleed so the veterans wouldn’t.

Martinez had read the report twice, lips tight, knuckles white. Their voice, when it came, was low. “I told him not to go. Just…orders were orders. I knew it wouldn’t work, they were too green. They even told them it could happen....That it was a ‘calculated loss.’ They all still went out.”

No one interrupted.

Raimi had gone quiet. Kerren stared at the floor like it owed him something. Even Terrow, usually fidgeting with his tricorder, sat still. Like he felt the impact of the emotions, his dark Betazoid eyes wide. He was weathering the storm of what Martinez was pushing down inside themselves.

Jace didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say. Family. Blood. Siblings. These things weren’t in his vocabulary. He had no frame of reference. Just instincts: sharpened, bruised, raw, that said when someone in your unit cracked, you didn’t look away.

He stood, slow. Crossed the room. Sat beside Martinez, not close enough to touch. Just… near. A perimeter.

They didn’t look at him. “He was fifteen when I enlisted,” they murmured. “He followed everything I did. I told him not to join. He said I didn’t get to make that call. That there was now a war on. And he was old enough.” The silence that followed had weight. Like gravity on a battlefield. Thick and undeniable.

Jace reached into the inner pouch of his fatigues and pulled out a small silver tin. Mint tea. Real leaf, not replicated, bartered from a botanist on the last ship they used as a taxi service. He hadn’t thought of ever getting fresh to dry, that had only happened because of Martinez. Martinez had given him some last winter, not long after Tho had died. They’d smiled when they did.

He slid it onto the table between them without a word. Martinez stared at it for a long moment. Then said, “Thanks.”

Jace just nodded once. Short. Clipped. Not the kind of nod that meant you’re welcome. More like I see you.

No one said much else for the rest of the night. Banik passed around heat packs and cheap synth-whiskey that tasted like engine coolant. And Jace wasn’t convinced it was really synth, or passed around as such while the officers weren’t around, while the Sergeants from the other squads were distracted. Raimi stood a silent watch by the doorway, eyes scanning the treeline. When Martinez finally got up and left, Jace stayed where he was, long after the others bedded down. The tin sat untouched on the table. He reached forward, slow, and tucked it carefully into the inside pocket of their jacket where they’d left it.
He didn’t understand family. But he understood loss. And the only way he knew to honour it... was to stay on watch.

USS Guinevere, 2388

The memory made Jace frown. His eyes were open. He should shut them. Sleep hadn’t come easy for years…not since the war. Some part of him was always braced, waiting for shellfire, for disruptor bursts in the dark. But tonight, it wasn’t noise that kept him awake. It was talking to Elen that had shaken something loose. Maybe it was the look she gave him, the way her eyes narrowed with humour. He hadn’t seen that look in years.

He remembered it from before. From Martinez. Before the war had changed them.

He thought about that night in the bunker, the acid rain steaming off their boots, that crooked excuse for a Christmas tree taped to the wall like a joke no one wanted to laugh at. Martinez had sat stone-still, grief tight in their throat and fists, voice clipped when they said, “Calculated loss.”

That night something cracked inside them; but it didn’t break. It just… changed shape. Cynicism came first: dry, sharp, never cruel, but harder at the edges.

Jokes got colder. Trust became sparing.

But they were still there. Still showed up every op. Still flanked left when he flanked right. Still moved like someone who would die for the squad if they had to. That hadn’t changed.

Jace remembered Martinez noticing the replicated mint tea he’d been carrying…how it wasn’t quite the same. So Martinez had found a way to get him real, dried leaves, something precious smuggled in and pressed into a small silver tin. Jace slid it across the table that night, the only gift he could offer back. He carried that tin with him to this day.

Martinez never spoke of their brother again. Didn’t have to. Some things didn’t need words. Just presence. Just the fact that, fifteen years on, Martinez was still here. Older. Sharper. Still unafraid of him. Maybe the only one who never had been.

And that meant more than Jace could ever say.

So he lay there. Awake. Remembering. And on some level, still keeping watch.

Starbase 371 – January 2375

Shore leave happened. Or R&R, depending on who you asked. For the 77th, it was a brief extraction; not from battle, but from the constant edge of it. Two days. Enough to remember how to breathe again. Enough to see who had made it through the last deployment and who hadn’t.

Starbase 371 had seen better days. The blast shielding was still scorched from the last skirmish. Hull plating repairs were ongoing, scaffold structures bolted along the outer ring. Inside, lights flickered in back corridors, and half the consoles looked jury-rigged. Klingons wandered the main concourse in full armour, loud and drunk, arguing with a Vulcan security team about a disputed knife length.

The bar Jace found was low-lit, quiet in that way military bars sometimes were…not from respect, but from fatigue. A place to forget without being watched. The drinks were synthol. Federation-regulated. A polite reminder that sobriety might still be required at any moment.

He sat with the squad early on, quiet in their ritual. Martinez laughed too loudly at a joke from Raimi, hiding their pain at the loss of their brother. Banik kept Kerren from challenging a Klingon to an arm wrestle. Terrow watched the crowd like he was on recon.

Jace said little. He drank slowly, more for appearances than any taste…synthol was bitter, and the haze it brought dulled his edges too much. His muscles ached; fresh scabs from field dressing a ruptured dermal plate two days prior reminded him of how close he'd been to the edge. A medic had offered to remove the scar. He declined.

The station hummed with low conversations and clinking glasses. Jace stayed long after the others left. Something in the air...the dim lights buzzing faintly at the edge of his hearing, it kept him still, alert. Watching.

That’s when he saw him.

Tall. Blond. Trill. The spots along his temple faded into the collar of his uniform like a path to follow. His bearing was officer-like, but not the Federation kind. His steps measured, smooth…like a predator skilled in tracking. Maybe intelligence, or something older, from another life of a potential symbiont.

The Trill smiled at Jace. He didn’t smile back. His stomach clenched: not fear, but a slow tightening. Fingers curled around his glass’s rim, but he didn’t drink.

When the Trill approached, it wasn’t like a threat. It pulled him forward, softly…light touch on his arm, asking, not claiming. Jace didn’t flinch, though it took effort.

They slipped away together to a service corridor off a lower deck. No words, just glances that spoke volumes. No romance, no undressing. Just breath, friction, and hands digging into fatigues. A mouth against his neck. His own breath loud in his ears.

It wasn’t violence. But it wasn’t tenderness either. Something in between…a language of need, wordless.

No name exchanged. No promises made.

The kiss came slow, gentle, reverent. Jace froze, hands clenching before stepping back. A cloth swipe…cleaning the proof, not the memory.

They didn’t speak. Just two strangers, holding something frayed, not to break it, but to keep it whole.

Jace returned to the bar. The squad was gone. Only the bartender remained, cleaning glasses, and the distant sound of laughing Klingons. He ordered a drink he wouldn’t finish and sat in silence.

His shoulders eased, not relaxed, but loosened. The sharp tension between his shoulder blades shifted just a little. He thought about the kiss, the feeling of being held like he wasn’t made of broken parts. But what lingered most was the softness of the kiss, the reverence in it, that he wasn’t ready for.

His jaw unclenched. The line between his brows softened by a hair’s width. Martinez noticed before they said a word, sliding into the seat beside him without invitation…no sound, just presence. A breath in a quiet place. Jace didn’t turn his head.

“You gonna drink that or just glare it to death?” Martinez nudged the glass toward him, voice low, teasing but warm.

Jace’s eyes flicked sideways, sharp and blue, but no words came. Martinez wasn’t looking for a conversation.

They glanced around the bar, taking in the familiar roughness - the cracked corners, metallic dust, a place no one decorated for Earth traditions like Christmas, where fake trees and garlands and charms would feel like eulogies.

“I got the tattoo finished,” Martinez said. “Shaded in the edges.”

Jace nodded once. “Good.”

“He would’ve liked it,” Martinez said softly. “Always wanted stars down his arm. Didn’t get the chance. Joined instead, and then... well. Now I got it for him.”

Jace didn’t offer sympathy, it was not his way. But he didn’t look away. He stayed. That was its own loyalty.

Silence stretched comfortably.

Finally, Martinez faced him, elbow on the table, jaw cradled in hand. “You went somewhere.”

Jace’s eyes flicked up, wary.

“I mean,” Martinez said, voice softening, “You disappeared. Came back looking... less razor wire, more like a person.” A beat. “So, you fuck it out of your system? Or just needed to be seen?”

Jace exhaled, a faint twitch of lips. “Does it change anything?”

Martinez shrugged. “Only if you think it does.”

He looked down at the drink, still untouched. “It was quiet,” he said after a long moment. “Not violent.”

Martinez tilted their head, warmth creeping into their voice. “That surprised you?”

He hesitated. “Yeah.”

Martinez leaned in, voice low, the warmth steady. “We all need something soft now and then. Doesn’t mean it breaks us. Means we’re still alive. Still people. Not animals.”

Jace didn’t answer. Didn’t know how. But he stayed.

They sat side by side…two bodies shaped by war, loss, and the silent rules built to protect the broken parts inside. Martinez didn’t ask who. Jace didn’t explain. No need. Eventually, Martinez stood. “You staying?”

“Yeah.”

Martinez nodded, clapped a hand gently on Jace’s shoulder. Not light. Not playful. Grounding. Confirmation.

You’re still here.

Jace watched them leave. Then looked back at his drink. He took a slow sip and set it down, deciding to keep a clear head.

To be continued in part 3

-----

Sergeant Jace Morven
Platoon Sergeant
Alpha Squad
USS Guinevere

RSS Feed