El Lugar de Nadie: Part I - Hurry Up and Wait

Posted on Sun Jan 18th, 2026 @ 3:58pm by 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez

2,212 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: USS Pathfinder
Timeline: 2386, 1 week after Martinez transferred

2386: Holodeck 1, USS Pathfinder – Marine Detachment Training

Martinez was early, surveying the grid of holodeck 1 with a slight frown on their face. They were in their combat armour; the training phaser rifle, sidearm and knife already equipped...the Marine green combat helmet clipped to their belt, waiting for what was to come. That was an old habit, keeping it clipped rather than just under your arm: less chance you'd lose it if you had to shift quickly. They glanced at the chrono on their forearm, a basic readout like a shrunken tricorder. The time meant something....Not so early it would draw attention. Just early enough to settle into the space without having to hold it against anyone else’s noise.

The holodeck hummed underfoot, black-and-yellow grid lines still exposed as it waited for the programme to be loaded. The familiar pattern felt both grounding and artificial, like the floor held all the possibilities in the universe. They scrolled through the preloaded layouts on the PADD, thumb tracing the schematics with absent-minded control.

All Team Leaders had received it that morning from Sergeant Stevens, who was the Marine CO’s quiet shadow. Standard protocol, as it didn’t just contain today’s bulletin but any other bit of shipwide communication a grunt could overlook that an officer needed to know. Not chow times, but what other departments were training where, status of the ship, weaponry…they were currently at warp. Heading to a new destination…it promised quiet for the Marines. Hence this….

Today’s training mission parameters were held back. That too was standard, it would only be the company commanders who would be briefed by the Marine CO, then it would be dispersed from them to the team leaders. As it stood, it was only four teams training. They’d be briefed after they had been briefed by the Marine CO. Inner circles stacked like crates in a transport bay. It made sense in a theatre-scale operation. Layers of command. Firewalls.

Still. What worked in the field didn’t always work in training.

Martinez looked back down at the schematic. Shipboard freighter. Civilian spec. Narrow corridors. Split-deck cargo hold. Tight-engineering maze in the stern. No entry vectors. No confirmed squad count. No known hostiles. Just a file name stamped in the header: Training Sim 14-C. Multi-squad boarding. Urban-clearance logic. Starship skin.

They inhaled. Exhaled. Let their shoulders settle a little, shifted under the weight of their gear.

It wasn’t the silence that unnerved them. It was what would follow.

Marine spaces weren’t like the Ground Forces, at least not as far as Martinez had noticed. They seemed louder, braver…certainly more theatrical. Banter at volume. Tension burned off with shouting, push-ups, and clipped sarcasm. Everything a performance, even the quiet. There were bonds, but a lot of them seemed to be based in them all having passed the same basic training. And the label. Marine.

Martinez had done the training, had passed the courses....Earned the tabs, the broken bones and bruises. But culture took longer than credentials, and Martinez had never been the sort to shout ‘Kill’ on three. Not even when the enemy was running towards them, knife ready because rifles would take too much space. No. Martinez had never been one who had wanted the kill...

But it had been necessary in the past.

They adjusted the fit of their gloves, eyes going to the arch, watching it for a moment. Somewhere behind the wall, the CO was likely deciding whether today’s inspiration came from Surak or Sisko. Either way, the quote would ignite some…no matter how misquoted.

It was fine. Martinez didn’t mind things like that, they just didn't get themselves...pulled into it.

They glanced up. Still the grid. No shimmer of the programme starting early. You never knew, of course. It happened on occasion. And being a Starfleet vessel, there might just be a gaggle of Engineers on their way in, who would freeze and back out slowly once they saw the Marines.

Marines.

It felt more like a label than anything else...new to them, not quite fitting yet They had traded the Ground Forces uniform for Marine green, and this was their first posting under the new colour. Not because the lines were cleaner. Because the lines still existed, and someone had to stand there and make a stand. After Mars, Martinez had been as paralysed as the other Ground Forces officers. And when word came that they would be, for the foreseeable future, stuck in the Sol system, Martinez couldn’t linger that close to the burning remains of the only place they had ever called home. Order were orders, you could take it or leave it.

So...they had transferred. Crossed over to the Marines. And--

They didn’t let the thought linger too long. Didn’t follow it down the path. They just folded it into the next step, the next breath, and focused on the room again. Recycled air. The faint hum of the warp core, four decks below. If they put a hand to the hull, they’d feel the vibration. Soon the walls would shimmer into plating and shadows. The holodeck would spool up with its burnished corridors and strobing red lights. And the training would start.

Martinez adjusted the strap on their field vest and let their hands fall to rest at their sides. They didn’t brace. They just stood ready. It was their first week on the Pathfinder, their first holodeck training simulation as a Marine officer.

The theatre might have changed. The rules hadn’t.

Hurry up and wait for orders.

The first boots hit the deck with the kind of energy that only came from someone trying to be heard.

“-and I told her, if you’re gonna weld the grav harness wrong, at least do it symmetrical so the body goes down pretty-” The voice belonged to a corporal. Lean-built, lanky in that high-metabolism way that hadn’t quite settled into its final shape. His gear was slung too loose, belt hanging just a bit off angle, helmet pushed low with the chinstrap flapping as he moved. The rifle rode across his back like it had never once been checked for balance. He was smiling, walking and talking at full throttle, mouth and hands moving like they were in competition.

Martinez knew the type. The ones that got louder the more tired they were.

Probably Corporal Oswin. One of the Earth names. Red hair visible beneath the helmet’s rim, short and curling from heat. His accent didn’t match…somewhere outside of the Sol-system with a cadence that flickered in and out of the Universal Translator’s smoothing. A mixed-draw, carried from colonies or parents or both. Didn’t matter. The man filled the space like soundwaves on contact.

Martinez didn’t interrupt. Didn’t announce themselves. Just let the noise wash over them as they observed the natural flow of the Marines…different than when they had been introduced as one of the new Lieutenants and everyone stood there with rods up their backs.

One step behind came a Lance Corporal who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. Barely twenty, maybe less. Black, shortcut hair with a hint of colour through it, looked almost dark green in the light, skin too pale for the lighting, and eyes already scanning the holodeck walls like they might close in. Her sidearm bounced too high on her thigh strap, and her hands twitched toward it twice before she stopped herself. Not nervous. Just caught in the rhythm of someone who’d failed a test already this month and knew she couldn’t afford another. Martinez caught the name stitched into the chest seam. Erasi.

Behind them, trailing a half-step out of formation, came the youngest of the lot. Private Peterson. But to the others, just Babyface.

It wasn’t said to flatter. It was a statement of fact.

He looked barely eighteen. The uniform still wore him, not the other way around. Coiled too tight in the shoulders, jaw already clenched, and eyes scanning for a target that hadn’t yet been offered. One of those who came in with a vengeance complex and an adrenaline tolerance, but no aim. Not yet. Not reliably. He was talking to Erasi in a slow, deliberate voice that didn’t quite match the tension behind it.

“I just want the chance to shoot something,” he muttered, almost like it was a request.

More followed. Boots in a dozen different cadences. Every footfall a little piece of someone’s mind.

And then, him.

Company Sergeant Major Trivens entered like a gravitational shift. You could feel it before you saw him. The air sharpened. Conversations pivoted mid-word. Even Oswin’s voice dropped off halfway through a sentence, like the breath got pulled out of the room. But there was a moment where Oswin was about to say something and got a firm elbow from Erasi…so she wasn’t as timid as she looked. That or didn’t want the wrath of the Sergeant Major.

His boots were mirror-shined to an almost absurd polish. Sleeves pressed to razor edges. Every thread tucked, every seam exact. The walk wasn’t just regulation. It defined the regulation. He had that kind of face where glee and fury wore the same expression. Hard-set mouth. Marine-issue helmet casting just enough shadow to make his eyes unreadable, except when they caught light like a shark’s. Flat. Calculating. He was Martinez’s height, but somehow took up more space. His presence had its own field.

Then he saw them. Not Martinez. Them. A pair of privates mid-check on their weapons, to the right. Maybe a holster misaligned. Maybe just in the wrong place at the wrong moment.

Martinez watched it unfold.

Trivens marched over, boots landing like punctuation, and opened his mouth before the privates even looked up. “Ma-rines! I am disgusted. I am appalled. My beloved Corps is now letting in any backwater, soft-bellied scum with a uniform code and a prayer. Look at yourselves!” The volume wasn’t a shout. It was a force multiplier.

“You call that tucked?” He jabbed a finger at one of them. “That looks like a targ chewed your shirt and spat it out sideways. Fix it, or I’ll run you through the damn fabricator myself and print you a spine while I’m at it.” Spit caught the light. The holodeck seemed to flinch. Martinez didn’t.

They stayed exactly where they were. Neutral posture. Chin level. Silent witness…relaxed in the moment. Trivens hadn’t looked their way yet. Just as well. Officers got no special treatment. If anything, they earned his scrutiny faster.

Martinez still remembered the sneer the first time they had met. The Sergeant Major had looked them up and down like he was evaluating structural damage. Then, without blinking, had informed them they needed a haircut. At least he had said it politely.

Sergeant Khouri was the one who approached Martinez. A head taller, broad across the shoulders, and careful with where he put his weight. He moved like someone who had learned, early, not to crowd others. Not in space this tight. He didn’t salute in the holodeck, which was correct. Instead, he gave a slight tilt of the head. Not formal. Just enough to register. A nod of recognition, not deference.

He was Martinez’s Sergeant, which, for now, was a comfort. The Argelian had so far struck them as a calm man. Even his silences carried intention. “Lieutenant,” he said, voice neutral. “Nice and early.”

“Marine habit,” Martinez replied drily. Not quite self-deprecating, but close enough to pass if someone pushed.

The truth was simpler. They had wanted to be first. To be early was to be on time. To be on time was to be late. Especially in the first month of a new posting.

Khouri gave the barest twitch of a smile. A flicker more in the eyes than the mouth. His voice dropped a notch, quiet enough not to carry. “Rumour mill says you’re one of the FGF transfers.” His eyes held steady, violet faint in the blue. Not accusing. Just present and trying to read something in Martinez’s face that they had long since locked down.

Martinez didn’t shift. “Rumour mill also says the mess is run by Section 31,” they said, voice mostly flat except the underlying warmth that they never could shake when they spoke. They betrayed nothing though, except a mild sense of humour. They didn’t need life to be harder than it already was. And they knew how close-knit Marines could be. You were either inside the wire, or outside it. Part of the unit, or watched. “You believe everything you hear, Sergeant?”

Khouri shrugged, one shoulder lifting in an easy arc. “I believe what I see,” he said, tone unchanged. Then he nodded once and moved on.

---To Be Continued in part 2---

RSS Feed