The Question of Walls
Posted on Thu Aug 7th, 2025 @ 8:55pm by Captain Niun Standing Bear & Sergeant Jace Morven
Edited on on Fri Aug 8th, 2025 @ 4:07pm
2,097 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Prologue
Location: USS Guinevere
Timeline: 2388
Alpha Squad moved through the drill in pairs: one-on-one, close quarters, unarmed. No music. No banter. Just the soft thud of bodies meeting mats, the grunt of impact, breath drawn tight, exhaled slow.
Sergeant Jace Morven stood at the edge of the space, still as a statue carved from habit and bone-deep vigilance. His posture didn’t waver. Arms folded across his chest. Boots shoulder-width apart. Weight evenly balanced, as if ready to move at a moment’s notice. He didn’t pace. Didn’t hover. Just watched, his eyes cutting from pair to pair with the cold, clean precision of someone who knew exactly what violence looked like when it was done wrong.
He wore the standard Federation Ground Forces combat uniform: dark blue, close-fitting, every seam in place. A careful repair marked the elbow of his left sleeve, nearly invisible unless you knew where to look. The fabric had been reinforced, not replaced. His boots were worn smooth in places, but polished to a dull, functional shine. No decoration. No softness. Just readiness. His combadge caught the light once as he shifted. The black sergeant’s insignia was the only new thing.
Rourke misjudged his balance and his own strength. Fell. Hit the mat hard.
Jace stepped in. No words. No reprimand. Just motion. He moved like someone who had learned efficiency the hard way. Shoulders loose. Footfalls silent. Spine aligned. All power driven from the core. He pulled him up. Then moved him. Shifted his stance. Adjusted his weight.
“Like this,” he said, low and quiet, without emphasis.
He didn’t wait for a response. Just stepped back. Motioned for them to start again, then returned to his position.
Jace didn’t train them to win. He trained them to survive. To end a fight before it turned into a story someone else had to tell.
Niun entered and stood off to one side, matching up their training session with the Azhadi method and found it ... sad. Hours upon hours of training, always interspersed with laughter and sly remarks. Running from sunrise to sunset, silently through the woods, footfalls striking the ground in unison. Toriq falling into step beside him, driving him an inch to the left so his foot hit a puddle, grinning widely. Brothers who knew they would die young and also knew how to savor the moments.
Jace caught the shift without turning...motion at the edge of the room, weight distributed with care, the kind of stillness that wasn’t passive but chosen. Captain Niun Standing Bear. First Officer. The warrior from the track.
Jace didn’t look over, not fully. Just a flick of the eye. A recalibration. Presence acknowledged, but not addressed. Niun wasn’t here to interrupt, and Jace wasn’t about to offer ceremony.
The troopers kept moving. Another set ended with a clean takedown. A grunt. A staggered breath. No one was bleeding. Good enough. He waited until the next rhythm finished, then let silence take the space. “That’s time,” he said, voice quiet but carrying.
The squad paused. Not sloppy, not immediate. Just enough to show they’d learned how to stop with discipline, not collapse. He turned slightly, giving a sharper look towards two of them: Trelan and Ra-Gari. They were already moving before he spoke.
“Warm-down. Ten minutes. Trelan, lead it. Ra-Gari, spot.”
He stepped back then, off the mat, letting the routine unfold without him. His eyes cut once more to where Niun stood. No salute. No words. Just a fractional shift of stance, weight settled evenly, a silent acknowledgement of rank.
Niun motioned him over and waited, impassive, as though drawing a cloak around his emotions, his inner being. An Azhadi could stand for hours, guarding the I'mai, without moving and yet, react instantly to any threat or dishonor. Such was their training. He called on that now, settling into place, and waiting for the man to approach.
Jace recognised the gesture for what it was. Not a suggestion. Not a request. A summoning, wrapped in silence and steadiness. The kind of thing you didn’t ignore, not if you understood chain of command, or the way certain men held space like it meant something.
He gave Trelan a final glance, just enough to confirm she had the squad in hand, then walked over.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t drag his feet either. Just moved with that same measured gait he used in close quarters, force channelled low and centred. He stopped at a respectful distance. Not formal parade-ground spacing. Just the kind that left breathing room between men who’d both been trained to kill.
He met the First Officer’s eyes, face unreadable. “Sir.”
"Sergeant," Niun said with a slight nod of his head. "I haven't seen any reports from this department and, since I haven't served with a Ground Forces Detachment before, I thought I'd get the report first hand." He stood quietly, without extraneous movement, as he spoke. "Tell me something about what you do. What you can do."
Jace watched him. Not openly, but closely enough to see how he stood: balanced, quiet, no wasted movement. Not the stance of someone curious. The stance of someone trained. Exactly as he had seen him on the track. A fighter, but... not like he was.
He gave him the truth. “Ground Forces go where the ship can’t. When it’s not safe to beam in. When a perimeter needs holding. When you need someone to move through hostile terrain without support.” His tone didn’t shift. No edge. No pride. Just fact. “We clear, secure, extract. Urban, low-atmo, subterranean. Breach-and-hold. Live zone escort. Boarding actions. We stay behind if that’s what the job needs. First on the ground. Last one out. If at all.”
He paused. Not to emphasise. Just to breathe. “We don’t specialise. We finish.”
"Ha'oh," Niun said, slipping into the common tongue of his people for a moment, "I understand. I have done this work on my world though we went about it much differently than I suspect you do. Do you use the ... holodeck?" The last word, tinged with his own dislike of the place, was born of his personal preferences. Starfleet imposed limitations on their people that the Azhadi would never have accepted.
“We train there,” Jace said, watching Niun. He had heard the way the word holodeck landed, flat and edged with distaste. He shifted slightly, adjusting his stance. Not out of discomfort, but habit. Weight redistributed through the balls of his feet, shoulders square, spine loose. Always ready to move.
“It’s useful for running scenarios. Recreating environments. Helps the squad work under stress without the casualties.” His tone stayed level, but his jaw tensed, just slightly. He had caught what Niun had said. Your way is different. He didn’t disagree.
There weren’t that many live war zones left. Not ones Starfleet was willing to throw a green squad into. “It’s not perfect,” he said, eyes steady on the other man. “But it gets them ready.”
Niun nodded. His quick gaze taking in the team and Morven himself. Their ways were different ... less than what he went through as an Azhadi ... but that didn't mean they weren't effective in their own way. "Perhaps, I could observe your sessions," he said. "See your methods at work."
Jace watched the First Officer, a muscle in his cheek twitching at the words. Being observed. “If you wish, sir,” he said, his voice softer now. Not warm. Not hostile. Just level. He remained standing, still as ever, even as he heard Trelan guiding the squad through their cool down stretches. Behind him, movement continued. Controlled. Predictable. His ears caught the shape of Niun’s accent, something unfamiliar. His mind turned it over, weighing tone and rhythm. Unknown. Couldn’t place it. He dismissed it as inconsequential.
“The training schedule is available for you to access.” He didn’t bother offering to send it. Corporal Ra-Gari uploaded it every week. It was good discipline, and meant Jace didn’t have to sit down and fight with a PADD.
Niun watched the fortress of the man, shuttered and still, and wondered what had taken the light from him while he yet breathed. He thought it a terrible thing that the man would allow himself to live so. "The day I received my caste mark, we were taken on a run, dawn to dusk, and at the end, I was given the mark. No fanfare. No ceremony. I bathed in the river and by the time I got back to the camp, everyone had eaten and were settling down for the night."
He smiled fondly at the memories those moments still held for him. "I was surprised. Almost disappointed. I had achieved a difficult thing going through those trials. Most failed. The First among us told me something I have never forgotten. And I tell you it to you now as it was told to me."
"We are the outward-turned face. We stand on the edge of what's known, sword in hand. We are the star that shines bright but short. This is what it means to be Azhadi ... you would say, warrior. Those are big words. Hard to hear and maybe harder to understand." The First looked at me, laughter in his eyes, and nodded toward the tents where the Amrazi were. But before I went, he said. "We live in the moment. Each one fully. That also is what it means to be a warrior."
"I will find the information and I will attend," Niun said. "It is a moment I wish to experience and walls have never frightened me."
Jace listened, his expression mostly unchanged as he took it in. Just a slight tightening between his eyebrows at the way the man spoke of camaraderie. And the words...he understood them, but not what they pointed to. The picture they painted was something he couldn’t see. He had not lived that way.
His hands tightened briefly, fingers curling against his palms, then relaxing again. The tension passed without comment. Buried. Filed away. He swallowed past the unfamiliar feeling and met the First Officer’s eyes, eyes steady. “Walls aren’t meant to frighten,” he said quietly. “Just to hold, Sir.”
Niun could, if he looked hard enough, almost see his First standing behind the man, shaking his head. A wall is not broken in one strike. Sometimes, it takes generations. The memory faded almost at once leaving him facing the tightly contained Morven.
"The question is," Niun said as he met Morven's gaze and held it with his own, "what do they hold and ... are they as necessary as they seem." His internal clock, the sense he had of how things flowed and when a thing needed to be done, reminding him. "I must go."
“Sir,” Jace acknowledged the words. He didn’t analyse them. Didn’t turn them over in his mind. It just was. But he suspected the man before him might know exactly what the walls kept in, and what they kept out. He stayed where he was, letting his eyes lose a little focus under the searching look of the senior officer. Not coldly. Just stepping back, inwardly. Withdrawing, quiet and deliberate.
Niun nodded and walked away, fluid movement that carried him almost effortlessly from one place to the next in long strides while his gaze took in everything around him. To him, the crew were edun which was a hard thing to describe to anyone not from his world. He noticed them, spoke to some, nodded to others. Stopped for those who drew hesitant breath to speak. No Azhadi lived behind a wall. Ever. And he would not be the first.
Jace watched him go. Long, fluid strides. Each step deliberate, unhurried. The kind of movement that spoke of control, but not containment. No tension in the shoulders. No drag in the steps. A man who didn’t wear his edges the way Jace did. He tracked Niun’s movement for a moment longer, then blinked. Just once. A quiet reset. Then he turned, heading back to the squad. Boots solid on the floor, weight evenly balanced, motion clean and purposeful.
If the Captain was going to be watching, he’d make sure his squad performed well.
Captain Niun Standing Bear
First Officer
USS Guinivere
and
Sergeant Jace Morven
Platoon Sergeant, Alpha Squad
Federation Ground Forces Detachment
USS Guinevere