Sin Gloria, Sin Olvido: Part I - Martian Rain

Posted on Sun Dec 28th, 2025 @ 7:42pm by 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez

1,491 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: USS Pathfinder
Timeline: 2388, 2371

Backpost depicting violence and swearing. Reader discretion is advised.

2388: USS Pathfinder, Martinez’s quarters, 04:12 hours

The lights stayed low because no one had told the computer to turn them on. Still, it did not matter much to the figure sitting on the edge of the bed, drawing laces through the eyelets of the boots. It felt strange, right now, donning the dark green…once, they had donned the Federation Blue.

Their hands stilled.

It happened like that sometimes, you’d go a thousand mornings with no ripple, then one small snag and the past rose like steam, like a throbbing in your inner ear. It didn’t bring panic or a jolt, just a shift in the pressure…as if the air had thickened or the room had decided to lean slight to the left.

Angel Martinez pulled the lace once, twice…and looked up. They caught their own eyes before they focused on the figure in the mirror. Lean, shoulders bent slightly over the work, dark hair mussed at the fringe…perhaps the sharpness of their jaw had softened a little over the years, bit the weight behind the eyes had been like that as long as they remembered. It just…sat deeper now.

They held the gaze for a second too long, then looked away. The smell of polish and clean fabric slipped sideways in their head. It became rain before they knew it had...Martian rain beating down on terraformed lands and the scent of iron in the air.

2371: Federation Forward Training Base Epsilon-Kappa, Mars

It rained when Martinez stepped into the ring.

A by-product of terraforming, these sheets of rain. Mars was never meant to support life, but humanity had bent it to its will. It should feel familiar though, Martinez grew up on Mars. Their family were a shuttle ride away. Just go West.

The wetness damped the regulation short hair, made it stick in places. They breathed evenly in it, hiding the tremble. Not from cold. Not from fear. From outrage. They had been here for a day. A little over twenty-four hours, long enough to taste the wrongness.

Here was the evidence: Sergeant Tho, bald and barrel-chested, stood at the edge of the ring, eyes not cold, just gleeful. As if he were sizing up a piece of prime steak, the non-replicated kind. Martinez knew why. Shorter and wiry, they lacked the prominent muscles of the man opposite them.

The outrage rang in their ears. A public beating dressed as sport. No officers. The NCOs watched like it was weather. The troopers looked quiet. No, not quiet. Watchful. Not worried. Distanced, like a canyon between them.

“Last one standing wins,” Tho said, voice carrying under the floodlights. The man opposite rolled his shoulders. No smile. No sneer. Just a small, bright cruelty in his eyes as he started forward.

Fuck.

He hit like a bulkhead door. Martinez slipped to the wet side and turned a forearm to biceps, let the punch skate off ribs on an exhale. Elbow. Wrist. Angle. A drop line opened and went past them. They bumped him into a shoulder at the rim and let the shove back sell it as heavier than it was. Noise travelled. Good. Buy anything you can.

The man crowded close with short, ugly hooks and a thick forearm shoved across the collarbone, trying to fold them. Martinez gave ground, not in retreat but in a slow, curved spiral that measured steps and counted angles. Each shift brought them closer to the slick patch near the stack of crates.

Low slip. Heel pick. Palm under the sternum. Not a throw. Just enough to fog the man’s eyes and shake the breath in his chest. A moment. That was all it bought.

They didn’t follow. Didn’t press the advantage. They couldn’t afford to. Not here.

Because Martinez had started to understand what this was. Not just a beating, not just hazing. This was a weighing. A test designed not to end when you stood but when you stayed down. They could win every round and it would only stretch the lesson. Eventually, Tho would make sure the message was written in something that couldn’t be scrubbed out.

And there was no fucking way they were giving him that.

Rain thickened, pushing down in sheets. The ground gave up any pretence of firmness and turned to paste beneath their boots. Martinez adjusted again, weight shifting just enough to stay light on their feet. The next hook skidded off the guard and caught the edge of their brow. Heat flared. Vision ran red. Water tried to carry it off but only smeared it thinner. A pink haze that clung, persistent and blinding.

The ring noise faded for a second, the world narrowing to one eye and the drumbeat of blood behind it.

He smelled the change. Pressed in harder.

Martinez tried to ride the next hit long and loose, let the fall buy them space, let the sound distract the crowd. But the mud took them wrong this time, clung to boots, to knees, dragged at limbs like it meant to hold them down. They planted a palm to push up and the hand slid. Their boots scrambled, caught nothing.

A knee found ribs. Short. Mean. Accurate. Light flared sharp behind the eyes and then dulled, a wave breaking over the bones. Martinez curled tight, elbows drawn in, forearms braced to shield what they could. But he had weight, and time, and Tho did not call it.

A fist landed hard into the guard, then a second pushed past it and slammed into temple. Sound turned to wool. Their jaw snapped shut, teeth caught lip, and the taste of copper spilled wide across their tongue. Honest now. No theatre in it, just pain and blood.

Rain fell harder. It found every raw edge, traced each cut like it was learning the shape of them. Cold, stinging, patient. The ring blurred at the edges. There was no crowd now, not really. Just shapes in the downpour, and the low hum of breath in their ears.

They could have stood. They wanted to. But standing would feed him. Would feed Tho. Would tell them that this game was working.

And Martinez had already paid too much.

So they gave the crowd a show. Let the head snap on contact, though the chin was locked down. Bit the inside of their cheek again to keep the colour vivid. Let fingers fumble in the muck so it read like panic, like rag-dolling, not control. It was not enough. A boot stamped into their thigh, driving the muscle into bone. A forearm followed, grinding mouth to teeth. Breathe. Just breathe. The rhythm narrowed to a single thread, stubborn and low.

“Enough,” Tho said at last. Flat. Bored. Like he was deciding the weather, not a beating. The bruiser stole one more on pride. Tho let him. A short, ugly hook that clipped the ear and turned the inside of the skull to lightning. Then, colder, Tho’s voice rang in a shout. “I said enough!”

The weight lifted. Rain pattered. The floodlights hummed like insects. Martinez stayed where they were, cheek pressed to the ground, to Martian soil, breath counting itself. Outrage folded small and tight where it belonged. They could have pushed to an elbow for show. They didn’t. Pride wasn’t something they could afford. This was initiation. It only had to be endured once.

Boots shifted around them. The ring loosened. No one offered a hand and that was its own lesson. Someone laughed, a single dry bark with no mirth in it, and walked away. The rest followed, a scatter of dark shapes slipping out of the light.

“Welcome to the Seventy-Seventh,” Tho said, almost bored. “Learn fast, or die as meat.”

Silence moved in behind the boots. Rain filled it. Mud sucked at the fabric where Martinez lay. Their lip leaked in slow pulses that matched the thud behind the eye. They tasted grit, and blood, and wet wool. Focused on small things. Tongue to a back molar. Still there. Fingers curled and uncurled in the muck. Toes responded in their boots. Still whole. Just about.

They did not look for Tho. They didn’t give him their eyes. Time stretched and thinned. The floodlights turned each raindrop into glass. When they moved, it was only to turn their face from the glare, setting a forearm under the brow to stop the cut feeding the eye. They breathed until the world steadied enough to carry weight again. Then they tried a knee. Failed. Did not rush the second attempt.

They stayed down until the ring was only rain, and hardpack, and the memory of voices. Then, slow and sure, they gathered themselves. Not to stand. To crawl. Out of the light.

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