First Look

Posted on Wed Jul 16th, 2025 @ 8:37am by Lieutenant JG Constance 'Connie' Montoya & Sergeant Jace Morven
Edited on on Mon Aug 4th, 2025 @ 8:12am

3,087 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: USS Guinevere
Timeline: 2388 (1 week after Morven arrives on the USS Guinevere)

The counsellor let out a soft breath as she sat back in her seat. Her hazel eyes took in the PADD before her, the service record with a face staring blankly back at her. Regulation haircut. Five o’clock shadow having gone more in the 38th hour of anything. Blue eyes framed by dark lashes, solid eyebrows shaped over them. Not groomed, just maintain, like a bit of kit. The mouth was a line, not relaxed, not pressed together.

It would have been a handsome face in any other light, but these personnel file pictures were never flattering. Neither were the dark circles in a pale face. It could have been the stark lighting at the time.

Somehow, she doubted it. The lights were on, but whoever was home had buried themselves in the basement, underneath blankets. She had seen that look before. In many who had served in the Dominion War.

She reached for her cup of tea. Assam, dash of milk, no sugar. Just enough creaminess to take the tanning out of the leaves. A habit from her childhood, on Earth, a mansion in the English countryside that had been in her family for so long that she knew parts of her had already been buried there.

She had processed a lot of Federation Ground Forces troopers in the last week. Green ones, eager to prove something, still tasting the war that had raged in their formative years. Now, she held the file of a shadow of it. The ghosts that still walked the corridors, the shape of people, but with that bit buried under rubble.

Sergeant Jace Morven. Newly promoted to Sergeant. Almost twenty years service…he should have been higher in rank by now. But the service record, the psych notes, the mission reports and after action briefings explained it. It wasn’t that he was a psychopath or a homicidal maniac. No. It was another survivor whose trauma shaped him, a war hardened him, and the Federation found the use of him uncomfortable.

She didn’t blame them. It made her feel uncomfortable reading the content. He wasn’t the first escapee from Turkana IV to fall into Starfleet’s hands. But he was a footnote at best. An afterthought; maybe even a cautionary tale about what happens when you take someone like that into the Federation without the tools to help them heal.

There were softening aspects though. Lieutenant R. Dannic’s defense of his worth.

He is highly intelligent, slow to trust, but there is something in him that wants to belong. With the right path, he could become more than what his past would usually allow him. Words of hope, of a pre-War Federation. The counsellor smiled, a little bitter, her eyes scanning down the file.

Perhaps. But it hadn’t happened. Starfleet Enlisted Preparation Programme had tested and educated him and found him best suited for the Ground Forces. Didn’t have the vocabulary to work with explorers. Could obey instructions. Strength and violence to break things, quickly, to stop.

Stop people. Stop wars. Stop noise.

She had seen a lot of these come across her desk in her time. Even so, it didn’t mean she looked forward to the assessment. She wasn’t starting from scratch though. She was starting from a place where others had put in the groundwork. Counsellors, mentors. Squadmates.

She skimmed past the pre-war stuff. There wasn’t much there. A medical note questioning his age. Birth year was listed as 2350, no date. Medical scans inconclusive, malnutrition and physical strain cited as reasons. He could have been a year older. Or younger. No records of a birth, even a name. He had named himself though.

She wondered if the person who gave birth to him had called him Jace Morven, or he picked it up like flotsam and jetsam from the churn of Turkana. Even so, it was who he was now.

She reached to rub the back of her neck, her long hair free. It brushed the back of her hand as she sat there, eyes still on the file.

103rd.

77th.

He served in the 77th during the war. Black Ash. She grimaced at that, as she read the reports.

Jesus wept.

She had heard whispers of the 77th during her career. Had turned her head with distaste at the idea of a battalion in her Starfleet that had adopted almost Klingon-like habits. That wasn’t what Starfleet stood for. At least, it wasn’t supposed to be. It tainted all of them. And reading the bits her clearance allowed of the mission made her throat feel sour, not from bile, but from the knowledge of the darker bits that most pretended weren’t there. The Federation stood for hope, for exploration and understanding. For cooperation and kindness.

Starfleet protected that. But any protector will also draw in those who thirst for power. A place for bullies to carve out a niche and float under the radar. It looked the 77th had been run, at least culturally, by someone like that.

She had graduated after the war. Her thesis had been on PTSD. There had been enough subjects to interview, to work with, to observe and give the tools to survive another day. A whole generation of Starfleet personnel deeply touched by it, and that wasn’t even counting the Federation worlds who felt the war on their skin, their planets’ surface.

She had lost patients. Who had left Starfleet and just disappeared. Those she could at least pretend found peace. Others; pushed too far. Got themselves killed in ways that were written down as accidents, but she had always expected intent. Some she had stopped, had put the line in their file that gave them the help they needed.

But some had slipped through the net. Good liars, with easy smiles and soft chuckles. She had been fooled.

She had learned her lesson. Now she didn’t fully trust the surface stuff.

And many had lived. Or survived.

Jace Morven had survived. And judging by it, thrived in his own way during the war. She noticed the lack of NCO notes against his file for that time. He had led, a Corporal, quietly. Efficiently. Bloodily, yes…but never the blood of his own squad. Blood of the Dominion, sprayed across snow and sand and metal. It sounded like brutality. But she knew it was the sound of war, the wet noise of liquid hitting walls, the scent of burning and sound of phasers set to kill. She had been lucky. She had never seen those things or heard them.

But she had worked with those who had.

There had been an incident with a POW camp, gone against orders. Meant to be an intel run, observation only. Yet there were freed POWs. A small squad, entering in a sandstorm and leaving with the prisoners…but no captives. After that? No court martial. Just a flag on his file.

Ensure the squad do not encounter POWs if mission is to be successful. Do not put them in a place where morality becomes and issue.. Nothing else. No reference to what actually happened. Just that note.

And then the war ended. Things changed. Things only got worse after he was sent back to the 103rd, once the 77th disbanded. On the record anyway, but she was willing to bet the painting of her great-great-great-great grandmother that internally it had also affected the Sergeant.

Not fights he started. Fights he finished, a quick punch or two. Not drunken behaviour. Stone cold sober, a fist stepping in whenever he deemed necessary. Almost got busted down to private again. Until something changed. A transfer order.

Bravo company. Third Battalion.

And that is when his record changed. Clearly, Sergeant Garin Vel had seen something in Morven that had changed things. His performance improved. No more fights. Some half-glowing comments in his file. Operationally intelligent, strategic. A quiet leader. Slated for promotion. Almost there, in fact. Maybe not the poster child of the FGF, certainly not someone you’d take to a recruitment seminar, but solid. Got his team back alive, able to think on his feet. The things you wanted a Sergeant to do.

And then…

Dovar IX. A mission gone wrong, Sergeant Garin Vel dead.

And a trooper going off book in a way she was sure would give the ethics committee nightmares. No survivors of enemy combatants. Some of them unarmed, potentially surrendering. A saved diplomat. It had taken minutes. Single entry, one man armed with weapons and a willingness to kill.

…Corporal Morven carried Sgt. Garin Vel’s body out, gone in against orders to retrieve it once Charlie team secured the exterior perimeter.

Now didn’t that just read like an awaiting nightmare.

She wondered what he might have been feeling. If he had been feeling. Or had it just been reaction? Mission was accomplished, yes. Was it that? Obeying the last order from his Sergeant? Or was it something else, darker?

Starfleet certainly thought it was something more, because afterwards…

Echo Platoon, Special Ordinance Division. FGF’s badly disguised home for those who needed psych evals more than food, a place to put broken troopers that hadn’t crossed over to the part where they had to be discharged. Salvageable, but scarred. Some too dangerous to return to civilian life, some not. A place where that could be determined.

Morven had been there before coming here. With a promotion, so he had passed some unspoken barrier to finally get it. She looked at the counselor’s note. It showed slow progress.

Morven compartmentalises his emotions to an extent I haven’t seen in a human subject before. He has a high observational skill, able to read body language and inflection in another person. I don’t think he processes emotions the same way as others. Possible childhood trauma. He’s not mentally unstable, he lacks the language to be able to talk about his emotions. It has made my sessions very challenging.

She bet they had. But there was some hope in there too.

The holodeck programme of the woods has given him something. It hasn’t relaxed him, but it’s a place where he can reassess. I recommend these continue once he leaves Echo.

And then, there it was. Final entry.

He has passed the psych eval. He has gotten a promotion. He is ready, but I am not ready to let him go. I was making progress.

“Isn’t that a shame,” she whispered to the empty room. She finished her tea. Stood. Glanced at the time. Made herself another and put the PADD away.

Right on the dot, there was a soft chime. The doors opened and there he stood, as if he had somehow just appeared out of nowhere. Calm, straight back. Intelligent eyes sweeping over the room, over her. She sat still as he entered. Didn’t rise to greet him, recognition a security sweep well enough. Only when his eyes landed on her again and settled did she rise.

“I’m Lieutenant Connie Montoya,” she said, hands folded in front of her. “Please take a seat, Sergeant.” She motioned to the seat opposite her and retook her seat. “Welcome to the Guinevere.”

He sat down. Didn’t reply, watched her instead. Met her eyes…no, no he wasn’t meeting her eyes. She almost smiled. Clever trick. Looked like connection, contact, but it wasn’t. He wasn’t focused on her eyes, he was taking in her. Reading micro expression.

Survivor.

The word echoed in her head and she nodded to it. To her own thought. “And congratulations on both your promotion and your squad.” A pause. He didn’t say anything. She tilted her head a little before she smiled. “Of course, you have passed your psych eval. I am just here to…do a quick check in. Mandatory for new transfers. I am sure you know how these work by now.”

“Yes.” A word, singular. Not cold. Not even detached. A statement of fact. She logged in in her head. He sat still, hands on his thighs. Back straight. Eyes forward. He didn’t look cold. She tried to determine his age. Hit mid to late 30s, maybe even early 40s. Couldn’t made a fair assessment, each bit threw her a different age, from the lines on his forehead, to the lack of lines by his eyes, from the gentleness of his lips and the stubble hiding a slight dimple in his chin. No greys yet, but some hairs were getting lighter.

He was built like trouble. Broad shouldered, strong arms and chest. Not stocky, just solid. Brute force coiled tight, yet his breathing was…relaxed. Almost not there.

“I see this is the first time you are serving on a vessel,” she said and sipped her tea, an eyebrow raising a little. She considered offering him one, but with only fifteen minutes, she didn’t want to give him a way to fill space or deflect. She didn’t want to give him the option. “Detachments are very different. You’ll be considered part of the crew, same as Security used to be on this vessel. You’ll be around scientists, Engineers…people of other branches of Starfleet.”

His eyes went briefly behind her. A shift, a clench of a muscle in his cheek. She only noticed it because she was watching him closely. “I am aware, Lieutenant.”

“Good,” she smiled and put her cup down. Folded her hands on the desk, just watching him for a moment. “Some find ships claustrophobic. No sky, the idea we’re in a floating thing in space…but we try and build a community here. People interacting. Social things too. Might even be a jazz evening in the lounge…do you like music?”

She let it fall at the end, quick and quiet. Studied him closely, for more reactions. She got none.

“My former counsellor encouraged musical therapy,” was all Morven said. No change in expression, but now he looked at her.

“And…did you enjoy it?” she asked, her head tilting a little. The way he had said it as a fact without any personal preference…she’d dig there a little. See if she could scrape the surface static.

A slight tightening between his eyebrows. Not a frown, exactly. Close to. Frown-adjacent. “It’s just a different kind of noise,” he said, eyes going to her mug for a moment. A beat. “Earth blues. I listen to that.”

“Out of choice?” she asked with a small smile, curious. He had responded. Statements, facts. A little more, added at the end. He had done this dance before with a Counsellor, clearly walked a tightrope give her just enough for her not to write him off. She suspected it was all she would get. “Or because you were following instructions?”

“I was told to pick. So I picked,” he said and his face…didn’t relax, but settled like he had when he had entered.

“Choice…or chance,” she exhaled slowly and nodded. She’d file that away for next time. She wondered how much in his life was a true choice and what was just the calculation of highest probability of survival. “I saw in your file that there’s a note from your former counsellor about holodeck time. I’ve authorised it. I think considering that you are in barracks, with no privacy…an hour a week somewhere by yourself might be helpful.” She had booked holodeck 1. Just under his name, an hour every weedesk. He could do what he wanted with it. She wondered if he’d go.

His eyes went to hers then. Intense. She met his eyes without challenge or fear. Studied the blue of them. He gave a small nod of acknowledgement. No words.

“Alright then,” she said with a small chuckle, giving him a nod. “You’ve been here for over a week. Met your squad…settled in, more or less. Do you have any questions or concern you wish to express?” She chose the wording carefully. Not a trap, just a push.

He didn’t move. Didn’t say anything for a long moment, just sat there still. And then there was a small shake of his head. “No, Lieutenant.”

“Alright,” she said softly, accepting that. “Same time next month, Sergeant. And…for the record, next time? I am going to be asking you questions about your squad. Just so you know.”

He stood, not any wasted motion. Smooth. “Yes, Lieutenant.” Acknowledgement rather than permission. Eyes flat. Tone flat.

“Dismissed,” she said and watched him turn, walk with quiet purpose and silent steps across the carpeted floor and out. The doors closed behind him and she sighed, looking at the PADD. Took it. Opened a new section.

“Initial meeting with Sergeant J. Morven proved to be what I expected it to be. Emotionally withdrawn, fallen into a call/response cycle. I kept it high level and light for this session, but I suspect if I try to dig into his past he will either be silent or give me factual statements. Whatever emotions he feels inside he is keeping locked down. I might be able to build a rapport with him, but as it stands, I feel my position will limit it. I will monitor the situation, but I recommend observation at a distance. See how he integrates with the crew, especially those not from his squad and the FGF. He has a place there and will most likely perform without any issue. It is the interpersonal relationships of a Starfleet vessel that will prove the true challenge for him.”

She stopped and exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment. She felt tired. A bit despondent. She had hoped for more but gotten exactly what she had expected.

“I don’t have much hope,” she said, and then erased the line.

No. She’d give him a chance before writing him off. She had faith in the crew.

Maybe they’d help. Individuals had before. Maybe this crew would give him a new language, one word at a time. There was still hope.

---

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

&

Lt. jg Connie Montoya
Counselor
USS Guinevere

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