Lo Que Cargamos: Part II - Wet Breath

Posted on Thu Jan 1st, 2026 @ 11:15pm by 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez

1,280 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: USS Pathfinder, Various
Timeline: 2388/2374

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

2374: Dominion War Frontlines, Planetside

It wasn’t a jungle. Not really. The roots didn’t twist like they should, and the air didn’t move right. Martinez didn’t know jungles, but they knew wrongness. The vines bled clear when they were cut, and everything stank. Ozone. Wet heat. Old blood. The kind of stink that never washed out of your skin.

Martinez felt it settle in the back of their throat, thick and constant. Same as the sweat down their back. Same as the ache behind their eyes. Their boots slid in the mud, on slick leaves, ribs sore from the last shelling, shoulders sore from carrying too many things they hadn’t been trained for.

The squad moved as one, but not out of habit. Out of tiredness. Out of the kind of bone-deep exhaustion where coordination is just shared damage. Kerren limped. Banik shifted her weight carefully. Raimi had that look again, the one she got before she knifed someone. Terrow whispered updates in a voice too hopeful for this place, even with Vasran not there, carried away wounded…medical discharge, if she was lucky. Funeral if she was not. Martinez tried not to linger on it, the pain of the loss of her hard-won smile too harsh to carry in their kit.

Morven took point, same as always, because there was no point in trying to go past him. He always moved first, with that terrible, inevitable forward momentum that didn’t ask permission. The moment Terrow said "two hostiles," Martinez braced for what was to come. An inevitable as weather, yet their eyes snapped towards Morven regardless.

Morven raised his hand to halt. They all stopped. Then, just like before, he ran. No sound. No signal. No coordination. He just moved like a weapon thrown by an invisible hand.

Martinez swore, first in Spanish so soft the universal translator didn’t catch it, then Standard. “Shit. He’s doing it again.” They weren’t angry. Just tired. So bloody tired of the pace, of being forced to move in rhythms written by violence….of watching someone become less and less human because it worked. Of being helpless to stop it or slow it.

Banik didn’t even look up. “Then shut up and cover him.”

So they did. Scopes up, lines drawn….Eyes burning in the smoke. Martinez could barely remember what proper air smelled like anymore. Their mouth was dry. The trigger of the phaser rifle felt like the only real thing left in the world. Still no scream. No call for help. Just silence again. Silence like death. They fired to cover, not to hit but to distract.

When Morven came back, his gloves were bloodied and his face unreadable. Terrow looked like he wanted to say something. He did, haltingly, courage gathered to his chest the same way a child would at school. “You’re-”

“Shut it,” Morven said, with a voice devoid of cruelty. It was just flat, two words that fell like a stone in sand.

Martinez didn’t flinch. Not anymore. Just logged it away and moved on. Morven never had many words. But he was always honest. If he was shutting it down, it meant it was something they didn’t need to know. Later, when Raimi asked Morven if he enjoyed it, Martinez didn’t bother listening for the answer. They already knew. They knew he didn’t enjoy it, but everyone could see he was good at it…that it kept them, and him, breathing. And then Terrow, damn his honest heart, spoke again. “The one you stabbed...he was surrendering.”

Everything paused for Martinez. Morven froze, then walked on. “He was still moving,” was all he said. And that was the end of it. No one argued. Not in this place. Not in the burning green of this nightmare where nothing was what it seemed and everyone bled from wounds that didn’t show up on triage reports.

Martinez followed with the rest of them. Eyes sharp, breathing measured and phaser rifle held steady even when nothing else was. But something lingered. Morven was barely older than them. Maybe twenty-four, most likely a little younger. Still young enough to have been someone else once. But he moved like he had been carved out of the same stone as the war itself. Already shaped. Already set.

Martinez saw it. Saw how the others looked at him sideways. With fear, or caution, or that weird mix of awe and recoil. Even Raimi kept her distance, when she was usually quick to find someone’s tender points and apply steady warmth to ease them.

But they didn’t. They looked at him, all of him, and didn’t flinch. Never asked about the blood. Never tried to explain away what he did or who he was becoming. They didn’t need to; they had their own ideas. And their own mission, to step in when needed. Once, after a mission like this one, when Morven returned with blood still on his gloves and smoke still in his clothes, Martinez had handed him a water canister and said, firmly, but making a point of meeting Morven’s eyes: “Next time, maybe take backup. We like your grim arse alive.”

That was it. No judgment. Just the facts. They never said they trusted him. Didn’t need to. Because that wasn’t how it worked. Morven never thanked them. But Martinez remembered the look in his eye. It hadn’t been guilt or gratitude or anything like that. Just the briefest flicker of something that wasn’t war.

And somehow, that made it worse. To know that there had been something else there, once. And then the war swallowed it up.

2388: USS Pathfinder, Mess Hall, 17:58 hours

The coffee had somehow gone even colder, which was a feat in itself. Martinez blinked down at the half-empty mug, the dark surface still, thin lines of residue clinging to the inside. The PADD lay forgotten by their hand, display dimmed, the same paragraph left unread for the last ten minutes. They touched the mug, tracing the rim for a moment. Something felt off. They picked the mug up.

Too quiet. The background voices had faded. The mess was emptying, the noise softened to messhall hum and the clink of cutlery being cleared for recycling. Someone laughed from a distant table. Sharp, too sharp. It jolted against the quiet thrum behind their ribs.

They rubbed at their eyes with the heel of one hand. It didn’t help. The jungle was still there, behind the lids. Chemical smoke, the reek of split roots, blood on gloves that never came off clean no matter how long you scrubbed. They still felt it, on quiet nights, the way socks could feel crisp with dried mud or blood from a blister rubbed raw.

They could see it now, in their mind’s eye. Morven's shape in the smoke, a knife in hand, face like carved stone. No weight in his stride, like the earth didn’t get to hold him anymore. Like a wolf across a plain, hunting.

Martinez set the mug down with care and stood. The motion helped. Gave their hands something to do. Let their muscles speak over their thoughts. They didn’t need to be here. Not now. They tucked the PADD under one arm, picked up the mug to recycle, and crossed the room without a word. No one stopped them. The door hissed open, the corridor cool and quiet beyond.

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