Sin Gloria, Sin Olvido: Part II - Martian Dust

Posted on Sun Dec 28th, 2025 @ 7:43pm by 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez

2,422 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: USS Pathfinder, Various
Timeline: 2388/2372

Backpost depicting violence and swearing. Reader discretion is advised.

2388: USS Pathfinder, Officer’s quarters, 04:19 hours.

The lace lay slack across the boot where they had stopped. Martinez blinked the cabin back into place and tested their jaw with the tip of the tongue, an old check for damage that was not there. The heaviness did not leave, but it settled. It came in spells like this. Not catastrophe. Just the weight of it nearer to the skin.

They finished the knot, neat and double, then pulled the second boot into their lap and laced it without hurry. The recycler hummed. The clock ticked loudly, an antique thing that they had been given by their father. When both boots were on, they sat a moment longer with hands quiet on their knees.

They stood, grabbed their jacket, tugged it on, secured it, then went to the door. The corridor air was cool and clean, quiet this early, and the day would be what it was.

Martinez made their way to the mess. Quiet at this time, between shifts. Even so, if sleep was not going to come to them, they might as well refuel. They went to the replicator. Porridge. Then looked at the list of hot drinks. Mint tea was an option. They replicated one, then also a coffee. Went to sit down, staring at the mint tea, the scent rising. Familiar.

As always, it brought forward one person in their mind.

2372: Federation Forward Training Base Epsilon-Kappa, Mars

The new man came in with his kit slung over one shoulder and an unread PADD in the other hand. No wasted steps. No pause to take the place in. Just a straight line to the bunk assigned to him. Martinez watched from the end of the row, elbows resting on their knees, their body aching with bruises from training. But any newcomer, any change, brought dread through the 77th.

First glance, the man looked like he had always been Ground Forces. He was built like he had been carved for carrying weight, with shoulders squared without the drill and a neck thick enough to make it look natural. He was heavier through the chest and arms than Martinez, his movements slower in a way that read as control, not hesitation. Martinez was fully aware of what they were, that they were leaner, wiry, the kind of strength shaped by speed and exactness. Side by side, they would look like different tools for different jobs. Still, they couldn’t stop themselves comparing.

Ah, but the hands. Martinez clocked them the moment the man put down his kit. That was where the real story sat. Scarred across the knuckles, skin thick from repeated contact, but the fingers were straight. Not a single one healed wrong. No twist, no stiffness. These were hands that had been broken before and set right every time by the looks of it. Hands made to strike and hold, to keep hold, even under pressure. Martinez’s hands carried different marks. Rope burns. Thin scars from knives slipped from control, that raised knuckle of stubbornness…they were fine details worn in over time. Not the same story. Not a softer one either.

As he stowed his kit, the rest came into focus. He wasn’t bad looking, in that rough way where softness had been worn out by life. His hair was cropped close at the sides, a little longer on top…the bare minimum of what was allowed. It was dark enough to catch a shine under the lights. He had a face made of angles, jaw like it had been cut to fit around silence. His blue eyes, pale and sharp, moving not with his head but with his shoulders, the way someone scans who expects the corners to lie. Every shift of weight had purpose. That kind of movement came from living with threat, not training.

Martinez recognised the shape of that silence with a sickening thud. The way someone carried themselves when they had stopped expecting to belong, or to thrive. It was too early to tell if the silence was armour or weapon. Either way, it was thick-set and deliberate. Like everything else about him.

Martinez knew that posture. It meant he had lived ready to move in any direction and had never shaken it. That kind of readiness never truly left you. It carved itself into how you sat, how you stood, how you walked into rooms. It also meant trouble in the 77th. Tho would see the lack of flinch and call it arrogance. He dealt in fear, not respect, and he liked his lessons public. A man who gave him nothing would either be worn down until he did, or set apart until someone found a reason to make him bleed for it.

When PFC Morven straightened, Martinez caught the seam of scar near his collarbone. The fatigues hung on him like they belonged there. The fabric pulled slightly across the upper arms, a quiet reminder of the power beneath. He sat on the edge of the bunk and began lacing his boots with a rhythm that was smooth and deliberate…not slow, not rushed…just measured. The kind of movement you only saw in someone who could lace them in the dark, half-asleep, with fire at the door. Martinez knew their own lacing was quick, automatic, with the sense of urgency they had experienced since they were a child. This man across them? He moved like every decision he had ever made would lead to the same place, as if was all…predestined.

The others seemed to ignore the newcomer, having taken his measure in a glance. Just another hard case in a unit full of them.

Martinez did not. They had seen enough to know that quiet could mean danger, and stillness could mean someone was holding more than they could show. This one had both and it was wrapped tight and sealed up in silence. Not a word wasted. They filed it away. Not judgement. Not welcome. Just a note in the ledger: Morven. Knows how to vanish without leaving. Could be a hammer. Could be a fuse. The Sands help us all if this ends with a death.

2388: Mess, USS Pathfinder, Mess, 05:02 hours

The porridge had cooled into thickness and the coffee has lost its grounding aroma. There was also the mint tea, tendrils of steam curling, stubbornly teased the air with its lingering scent. It was sharp, green, and brought into focus the memory of the man who stood in the barracks of the 77th all those years ago. Silent. Watchful. Braced as if the walls may move against him at any moment.

Martinez stirred the porridge once, the spoon turning slow as they moved it, and let the steam carry the memory back to where it belonged…It was not gone. It never was. But it loosened its grip enough for them to take a mouthful, then another. Not automatic, but with the sense that they knew they had to eat. Some things were routine. They should have added more cinnamon. Perhaps raisins, something to entice weary tastebuds to attention. But the food was there and needed to be eaten. They had eaten worse things before, in worse situations.

The mess began to fill. Not loud, but steady. Enough voices to soften the quiet. A few barks of laughter filled the corners of the room. Martinez looked up, brown eyes scanning quickly.

Two enlisted sat at a table near the wall, Science or Medical by the blue on their sleeves. They were arm wrestling, one of them already losing. Their hand shook with the effort, muscles locked, face drawn tight. Still, they were not giving in.

Martinez knew that shape. The tension through the shoulder. The refusal to yield, even when the outcome had already written itself. They had seen it before.

In the pit. And what happened when someone wouldn’t back down.

2372: Mars. Federation Forward Training Base Epsilon-Kappa

They didn’t remember hearing the order. Just the movement that followed it. The pit wasn’t official. It had never been official. Just tradition, sharp-edged and soaked in sweat, upheld by Tho and the NCOs who liked watching skin hit gravel. Any reports up the chain on it disappeared quickly, as did the troopers who reported it. Whistleblowers were not greeted with kindness.

As expected, the crowd had gathered early, boots forming the line. Martinez didn’t join them. They stood off to one side, arms folded, silent…watching. They had to come, had no choice, but there was a choice in how they behaved.

Morven was already inside. No ceremony, no bravado, no posturing. Just a man in a sweat-dark shirt, standing square, hands open and still. Just like how Martinez had seen him in the barracks, all quiet and built like the edge of a storm. Now he stood like he had already done the maths and nothing in front of him mattered. Still, flat…not calm, no…blank. Empty, or certainly with the appearance of it.

The first hit came fast. Then another. And another.

Morven didn’t flinch from the hits. He moved like someone who had been hit harder by better. No wasted effort, no anger, just motion. Strikes that landed sharp and efficient, every one of them without joy on the man’s face. The others watched like it was a show. Some with bets, some with interest, a few with malice. Martinez watched the gaps. The way Morven moved around pain instead of through it, the precision….The refusal to show effort, as if that too would cost him.

Stay down, they thought, quiet and honest. He had already proven more than enough in the first minutes. The crowd wasn’t watching for strength. They were watching to see if he would break, how he would break. Then it turned.

Tho stepped in. Picked someone bigger, a Private who Martinez knew could bring down a brick wall if he put enough effort in. From one of those heavy gravity places. They knew what was coming, everyone except the man in the ring knew. They knew the tone Tho’s voice carried when he wanted someone broken from the inside out. They knew what happened when someone didn’t give him fear. Because Tho saw fear as respect. And Morven hadn’t shown an ounce.

This time it wasn’t a fight. It was punishment in the shape of ritual and it tore through the 77th like a shuttlecrash. The crowd stopped cheering and instead watched with a sickening silence that made the sound of fist on flesh echo.

Morven kept standing. Kept getting up, even when his body clearly wanted to stay down. Martinez recognised the signs. That push beyond pain into something else. There was no anger, no pride…something primal. Survival. As if standing was the only thing that made him real.

He can’t, Martinez thought. He isn’t wired for staying down. And it wasn’t strength. Not really. It was something older than strength. Something no one had ever taught him to stop doing. And he kept getting up.

Until he couldn’t.

Martinez didn’t see the final blow, their eyes had unfocused to protect themselves against what was before them. They just saw the result as their eyes re-focused, the sudden, total stillness…the switch thrown. They saw the way his legs folded, not clumsily but completely, like someone had pulled the current…Like his body had stopped taking instructions.

The silence in the pit was sudden and sharp. Tho crouched beside him...Close. Too close, voice levelled low and vile, a whisper in front of an audience straining to hear more. Martinez couldn’t hear the words, but they didn’t need to…they knew the echo of it, saw it in the way Morven’s face stayed still. Blood in one eye. Jaw clenched, not in defiance but in absence. Nothing behind the expression. Not rage. Not shame. Just void.

They’d seen that before. The look of someone who had learned that being still was the only kind of safety they were ever allowed. Tho stood. Walked away. No one moved.

Morven stayed where he was, chest rising shallow. Mud in his hair. Blood at the corner of his mouth. Still. Silent. And no one helped.

Not even Martinez. They stood still, jaw tight, arms crossed, spine straight. They watched a man collapse, saw the edge of him tilt into something beyond hurt…and did nothing. Because going to him wasn’t an option. Not here. Not if Martinez wanted to stay breathing. Not if they wanted the ring to forget their face.

And that silence would stay with them longer than they ever admitted.

2388: USS Pathfinder, Mess, 05:20 hours

They finished the tea in two more sips, the cooled down minty liquid stripping their throat. No rush in getting it down, despite never having grown to like the taste. Then they stood, slow and even, and placed the empty mug in the recycler with the bowl and the coffee. One more small motion in a day that had already begun long before the lights came up. They did not say his name.

Not out loud. Not where it could echo. But quietly in their chest, against their heart, whenever they caught the scent of mint.

Almost thirteen years since they’d last seen Jace Morven. Not a word, no service updates….No knowledge of where he had gone. The 77th scattered. Some promoted. Some dead. Some missing. Some disappeared by choice. Martinez had learned not to search, not to ask the computer for people. Schrödinger’s squadmates: unless Martinez looked for them, they were both alive and dead. They did not want to find out and find out that Jace had been killed.

But they still carried the name. Not as a wound. As a presence. A man shaped like terrain. A fuse that never sparked for the wrong reason. Someone who stood, always, even when he shouldn’t have had to. They hoped, without praying, without reaching, that he was still out there. Not thriving. That wasn’t a word that fit. Just alive. Just still standing.

Then they left the mess, boot falls quiet in the corridor, and the day continued.

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