Lo Que Cargamos: Part I - Inaction Spoke

Posted on Tue Dec 30th, 2025 @ 11:54pm by 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez

1,682 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: USS Pathfinder, Various
Timeline: 2388/2373

Warning: This post contains violence and death that some may find distressing, reader discretion is advised

2388: USS Pathfinder, Mess, 17:42 hours

1st Lieutenant Martinez sat alone near the far end of the mess, a PADD in one hand, thumb skimming slowly down the screen. Requisition updates, unit drills, shuttle timings. The next rotation of hazard team readiness reviews. Nothing urgent, just the steady churn of shipboard logistics delegated to them by the Marine XO. Their coffee had gone lukewarm again, but they held the cup anyway, fingers wrapped around the escaping warmth. It was more for the caffeine than for enjoyment. Enjoyment would be later, as a reward for doing this. They knew how to treasure the small pleasures of shipboard life. Quarters of their own, a soft bed, a kitchenette where they could make things from home whenever needed…even if home was now only in memory, Mars still in ruin from three years earlier.

The background noise around them was low, just quiet enough to sit inside without attention being demanded. A spoon clinked against ceramic, two Starfleet Engineers were bickering in a good-natured manner about coolant ratios, boots that crossed the threshold. Then, from a few tables away: "I mean, yeah, the Dominion War was brutal," a young voice offered. It sounded confident…probably a second lieutenant. "But tactics have evolved. If it happened today, we'd handle it differently. Cleaner. Faster. Not made the same mistakes."

Martinez did not turn. They just sat very still, fingers curling tighter around the cup. A breath passed through parted lips. One, then another. They let the words wash over them without reacting…Not because it didn't sting to hear someone say something that openly, but because it had been years since they had let that kind of sting show to others.

The war was not a thought experiment. It was a bloodied boot that never dried right. A cold meal eaten in the dark beside someone who would not see morning. It was stitching a sleeve shut with thermobond so the heat packs wouldn't fall out. It was knowing the medevac wasn't coming. Again.

And it was Sergeant Tho and the day life changed for Martinez, when clarity hit as well as the blood, singed fleshed and horror that still pressed up against their back when they were alone in their bed.

The exact shape of the moment never left. Martinez felt it settle now, like a coat thrown across the shoulders. Heavy. Damp. Inevitable.

2373: Forward Deployment Zone

The rain had started before dawn and had not let up. It wasn’t rain like at home. This came with grit in it, ash and oil, turning the air into a smear. It got under the collar, soaked socks from above, clung to everything like guilt. Martinez shifted in the trench, boots sunk deep enough that movement meant suction. The sound of shelling had become something they no longer reacted to. Not really. It was rhythm now. Like the blood in their ears. Like the pulse they counted when sleep would not come.

Across the line, Tho was shouting again. Same barking tone. Same wild eyes. One arm flung out like he could swat the war away by volume. He always got loud when he didn’t understand the shape of the fight. Especially when they were spread out like they were. Martinez was convinced that if he could, he would be throwing plasma grenades just for effect. Tho was the Sergeant who had thirsted for war ever since he had been a boy, glorifying the horror. And now? He felt vindicated.

In the chaos of the battlefield Morven was still, his helmet low, his shoulders loose but not slack. The calm that came before movement. He was always like that. He’d been like that since the pit, perhaps even before. Martinez had learned to read him early: not through words, but through the way he cleared corners with his weight tilted just so. The way he shifted to cover without needing to be told. The quiet that wasn’t empty, just braced. Stillness that wasn’t peace, but preparation.

When Morven signalled to get down, the squad followed and Martinez with them, eyes following the ridge. A flash of something, reflected from too far away to see with normal eyes. It could have been something, it could have been nothing. But they took no chances.

The shot came unannounced yet not unexpected. Tho’s head snapped like a puppet string had been cut, and what was left dropped. No warning, no cry from the man. Just impact and then nothing. No one had shouted that there was a sniper.

No one had pulled the Sergeant down. Inaction had spoken louder than words.

It had been a split second between fire. Morven did not freeze up but raised an eye. There was no drama, no effect just the signal to stay down. And then he moved and everyone followed. Martinez too. They were without a Sergeant, but the orders still stood. Martinez could have taken over, they held the same rank as Morven…but they did not want to. Not when they saw how Morven already moved like he knew the way…like he had shaken off a leash and what stepped forward was not chaos but cold clarity.

For Martinez, it felt like safety. Moving forward was better than staying and ended up like Tho, a corpse in the mud.

The trench before them was gore. Morven stepped through it like it was terrain, not horror, with his phaser rifle ready as he moved. It looked like he belonged there and even in the moment it twisted like bitterness inside of Martinez. They stayed close, kept the rhythm…not shielding the man, not flanking him, but moving in tandem with him. And when Morven moved ahead and out of sigh, Martinez covered the others even if their heartbeat in their throat.

In the bunker, Martinez saw what was left of the Jem’Hadar. One down by the door. Another further in, close enough that the blood was still warm and the smell of ozone clung to everything. Morven stood in the centre of it, like he had been waiting. He looked up and said, voice low and devoid of any real emotions: “Next one’s bigger.” There was no strain, just fact. Martinez almost crossed themselves, but managed to avoid it by gripping their rifle tighter.

The day blurred yet came into sharp focus. And Martinez kept watching Morven, how he did not falter when Vasran fell. He lifted her like weight was nothing and kept moving. When Terrow, the young Betazoid who had been transferred into the 77th so quickly he had avoided the pit, locked up…Morven didn’t shout. He covered the line and cleared the next choke point without comment. It was never about comfort. He was not soft. He was not kind. But he held the line. Martinez could appreciate that in the moment. In the space of hours they learned where they truly fit, every single one of them.

And later, back at camp, when they had all come back in pieces, Morven sat alone. Rain still in his hair, knife cleaned but boots still caked with mud and blood. A metal cup in his hands. Mint tea. Always the same, the scent carrying in the air despite the smoke. Martinez watched him in silence, something rough in their chest. Not pity. Not admiration. Just the kind of ache that came from watching someone become a shape that the war needed but would not return to form when it was over.

They had not spoken that night. They had not asked. But Martinez had understood. Morven would not let them fall. And Martinez would make sure that he did not have to become a monster for that to happen.

2388: USS Pathfinder, Mess, 17:47 hours

The voices in the mess had risen while they weren’t listening. Martinez blinked once, then again. The coffee had gone cold. They hadn’t realised how far they’d drifted until they imagined the sharp scent of mint tea, slightly sweetened, entered their head. They exhaled. Then breathed in, to try and catch the scent. Gone, just coffee gone cold and whatever food was being eaten around them.

A second lieutenant was still talking. Still using the word glorious. Still getting the war wrong. Writing an essay of opinions based on vague memories of a war they experienced as a child on Earth, judging by the way they used Federation Standard. Itching for a fight, for glory. Oh glorious dead.

Martinez looked down at the PADD in their hands. Reports. Rosters. Something about duty rotations. It had slid sideways while they weren’t watching. They straightened it with one hand. Took a breath. Let it out slow. Tried to clear their mind, but too much was coming back.

Morven had led without rank. No speeches. No promises. Just motion that others chose to follow. A step into hell, taken first. That had been enough. It had been enough for them all to follow him, unsure why, but when everything else froze, Morven had kept moving.

Martinez traced the edge of the mug with a finger.

Did he ever stop?

Did he ever rest?

They hoped so. In the same quiet way they hoped for their own peace, on the days when it felt like more than they had earned. Some days, the weight settled easy. Other days it clung to the ribs and slowed the breath. But they carried it. Because he had. Because someone had to. Because it was proof that they were still alive and they had a duty: to remember.

They tilted the PADD toward the light and started reading again. The voices around them blurred into background noise, and the impression of mint in the air: entirely imagined, yet they clung to it as firmly as a child to their mother’s shirt.

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