In the Wake of Words

Posted on 01 Nov 2025 @ 3:29am by Senior Chief Petty Officer Elias Merrick

1,517 words; about a 8 minute read

// Merricks Quarters //

The hum of the ship was steady again. It had been since they’d gone to warp, but only now did Merrick realize he’d been listening for something more, the subtle pitch changes of strain or the telltale vibration of a hull compensating for atmospheric drag. He supposed that was habit; a lifetime of attuning himself to the difference between normal and not.
Now, there was only the calm. The kind that left room for thought.

His quarters were modest, as enlisted quarters tended to be, but precisely kept, not austere, exactly, but ordered in a way that left no room for clutter. A single book rested on the small shelf beside the bunk, Early Voyages of the NX Fleet. A cup sat on his desk, the last of its contents cooled to an amber ring around the base. He’d made the tea nearly an hour ago and hadn’t drunk more than a mouthful.

The final mission report had gone to Fleet Command three hours earlier. He’d watched the transmission indicator blink once, steady and green, before closing the channel. That simple confirmation had felt like a release, and something else.

Closure, perhaps. Or what passed for it in his line of work.

It struck him, as he sat there, how far apart the two moments really were, her almost saying his name in the ready room, and today, standing beside her as they closed out Tarvik. Different days, different silences. Whatever had flickered between them then had cooled, folded neatly back into protocol. She’d been composed this morning, precise, every word trimmed to regulation distance. He’d known that look, the walls rebuilt, the seams sealed tight. If he hadn’t been there to see them lowered once, he might’ve believed they’d never been down at all.

He’d seen the Captain once more after that. Briefly. She’d crossed the bridge to verify the convoy’s trajectory herself, pausing just long enough at his station to request a follow-up summary for the quartermaster’s office on 369. Her tone had been neutral, efficient, the voice of command restored to its proper range. But for just a moment, their eyes had met, and he’d felt that faint, disquieting flicker again, the echo of her almost saying his name before.

He’d filed it away. As one did.

Now, with the ship in steady warp and duty rotations settled, the day had finally caught up with him. He’d finished reviewing the department logs, run the next duty roster through verification, and still couldn’t seem to quiet his thoughts.

He sat at his desk, thumb idly tracing the etched rim of his old mechanical watch, his grandfather’s, as the seconds ticked in perfect defiance of starship chronometers. The habit was grounding, something human and imperfect in the midst of the machinery.

Finally, he leaned back, exhaled through his nose, and reached for the console. The screen came alive with a low chime.

Personal Log, Senior Chief Petty Officer Elias Merrick. Stardate 242510.29.2300.

Mission to Tarvik III concluded with minimal losses and satisfactory results. Environmental stabilization confirmed. Kaldari withdrawal complete. Crew performance exemplary.

That’s the report version, anyway, the part Fleet will read over a morning coffee before moving on to the next crisis.

Truth is, Tarvik was close. Closer than anyone wants to admit. I’ve seen storms break stronger ships than this one, not by force, but by fatigue. Waiting can do that. Makes the air thin. Makes the silences louder than the alarms.

The Captain bore it well. She always does. But there are cracks in even the best armor, and if you’ve stood close enough, long enough, you start to notice the places where the weight settles.

She asked me once how I thought she was holding up. I told her she was holding the line. What I didn’t say is that sometimes, I think the line’s holding her.

End log.

He closed the file and sat in the dim light for a long moment, listening to the gentle thrum beneath the deck plates. The words had done nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders. If anything, they’d sharpened it.

Merrick rose, crossed to the small viewport, and rested a hand against the cool metal frame. The stars streamed past in narrow white ribbons, silent and constant. He found comfort in their indifference. Out there, the events of Tarvik III were already fading into history, another datapoint in a fleet archive.

He wondered if the Captain felt the same.

He’d served with many commanding officers over the years. Some were brilliant tacticians, some politicians in uniform. A few had been truly exceptional. But Sabrina Corbin was different. She carried precision like a creed, every word and gesture measured. He’d recognized it instantly, the same discipline he’d built his career on.

Maybe that was why he found her so disarming. She understood the value of restraint, and restraint, Merrick knew, was its own language.

He’d told himself more than once that his job was simple: anticipate, support, protect the flow of command. But in the quiet between duties, that simplicity frayed. He could still see her standing at the viewport of her ready room, arms folded, eyes fixed on the storm below Tarvik III. Could still hear the faint tremor in her voice when she’d said, “You do everything right, and then it’s just… silence.”

He’d offered her patience. He hadn’t realized, until later, that he’d needed it too.

The hum of the ship shifted as the inertial dampeners compensated for a minor course correction. The holographic readout hovering above his desk wavered slightly before realigning. He adjusted the projection with a flick of his wrist , the motion smooth, habitual, something to occupy his hands while his thoughts wandered elsewhere.

There was a message in his queue, a brief note from his younger brother, Jonathan, docked at Deep Space 4. Routine things: freight delays, weather at Vega Station, a passing mention of their father’s retirement project. He read it twice before closing it unread.

He had no idea why that felt harder than the mission itself.

Sitting again, he reached for his cup, found it cold, and set it aside. The smell of bergamot still lingered faintly, pulling his mind back to the ready room, the steam curling between them, the quiet joke, the laughter that had come too easily.
He hadn’t meant to lean in that close. It wasn’t a calculated move, not really. Just instinct, the kind that drew one person toward another when silence grew too heavy to bear.

He’d told himself afterward that it meant nothing; that it had been a professional courtesy, a moment of human empathy in an impossible week. But that was a lie, or close enough to one that he didn’t care to measure the difference.
The ship’s chronometer ticked over to 2305. Time to sleep, if he wanted to function at morning rotation. He stood again, reached to dim the lights, and hesitated. His eyes went to the small shelf, to the single photograph tucked between the books, an old crew photo from the Caliburn, fifteen years gone. He’d been younger then, less careful, maybe less alone.

He wondered when service had become synonymous with solitude.

On impulse, he reopened the console. A new file this time, not a log, not a report, just a note to himself, written in plain text. No headers, no timestamps.

Patience is not a shield.
It’s a bridge. You build it piece by piece and hope it holds until the other side comes into view.

He stared at the words until the glow of the screen began to blur. Then he saved the file, out of habit, if nothing else, and finally shut down the console.

The lights dimmed to a soft amber wash. He sat on the edge of the bunk, pulling off his boots, and listened again to the heartbeat of the Arawyn. Beneath it all, he could hear the faint echo of her voice from earlier that day, calm, precise, unwavering: “That closes Tarvik.”

He’d replied, “For now.”

But he knew better. Nothing ever truly closed. Not the missions, not the silences, not the things left unsaid. They just shifted form, waiting to resurface when the next storm came.

He leaned back, let his eyes close, and let the steady rhythm of warp lull him toward rest. Somewhere beyond the hum of the engines, beyond the walls of his quarters, the Captain was likely doing the same, alone, disciplined, unreachable.
Still, as he drifted toward sleep, Merrick allowed himself one unguarded thought.

That maybe, in some quiet, unspoken way, she wasn’t the only one learning how to wait.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Elias Merrick
Captain's Yeoman

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