Repetition

Posted on 01 Nov 2025 @ 11:35pm by Captain Sabrina Corbin

1,213 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: After Tarvik
Location: USS Arawyn

The chronometer read 2103 when she finally closed the last report. Her ready room was dark except for the soft glow of the console and the distant wash of starlight through the viewport. The hum of the ship, low, steady, alive, was its own kind of heartbeat.

She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, feeling the familiar tightness of the day behind her eyes. It had been a long shift, the Arawyn underway to their homeport. Operations updates, engineering refinements, and a comm session with Fleet Logistics that had gone in circles before settling on what she had proposed to begin with. Typical.

But even with the work complete, her thoughts didn’t quiet. They hovered around a message that morning from her executive officer, Commander Adrienne Holt. A resignation. Unexpected. Short, professional, and final.

Their working relationship had only just begun to take shape. The Arawyn herself was barely a few weeks into service, and the command team still settling into its rhythm. Things between them hadn’t come easily, two officers with different temperaments learning each other’s pace, finding where trust began and where it needed to be built. There had been friction, yes, but nothing she had considered insurmountable. Time, she had assumed, would smooth the edges.

That assumption, it seemed, had been misplaced.

It wasn’t a long mission by any standard, which made the resignation all the more jarring. A surprise. A clean, professional punch to the gut.

Holt had been steady, pragmatic, the kind of officer who didn’t need constant direction. Losing her wasn’t just the loss of a right hand; it was the loss of a connection that had only just begun to form.

The Arawyn was too young a ship for such gaps in its command spine. Replacements would come, of course, they always did, but trust was slower to rebuild. Sabrina had built her entire command on precision and preparation, and yet this… this she hadn’t seen coming.

Her gaze drifted to the viewport. The streaks of distant light blurred slightly, reflected in her tired eyes. She had thought herself past surprises. Yet command had a way of humbling even the seasoned. People were variables, not constants, and no equation could account for their quiet departures. She exhaled slowly, feeling that familiar pressure in her chest that wasn’t quite anger but not sadness either. It was the in-between.

The temptation to retreat straight to quarters was strong, but she could already sense how that would go: a shower, a cup of tea, perhaps a few pages of Pride and Prejudice, and her thoughts would still orbit the same unfinished details until well past midnight.

No. The gym, then. Something she could control.

She set her mug in the recycler, dimmed the lights, and crossed the bridge to the turbolift and down to her quarters. Within minutes, her uniform was hung, boots stowed, replaced by a simple set of grey training clothes. No rank, no insignia, nothing that said Captain. Just breathable fabric and intent.

Her hair she twisted into a braid, efficient, out of the way. The reflection in the mirror was calm, almost austere. Thin, yes, but not fragile. The sort of strength built slowly, deliberately, five sets at a time. She regarded herself for a moment longer than usual, studying the faint shadows under her eyes. The face that looked back at her wasn’t weary so much as thoughtful, quietly measuring what had been lost.

The ship’s fitness bay was quiet at this hour. The overhead lights glowed in muted white, casting long reflections across the deck. A few off-duty engineers clustered near the treadmills, chatting softly. One nodded when she entered; she returned it, a brief but warm gesture.

She started with a treadmill warm-up, just enough to get the blood moving. Her breath found rhythm quickly, inhale, exhale, right foot striking on the downbeat. She disliked running, always had, but she liked the discipline of it. The protest in her lungs, the pulse behind her ribs, it demanded presence.

As the minutes passed, her thoughts circled back to Holt. She tried to recall if there had been signs, hesitation, restlessness, the small silences that spoke louder than words. She came up empty. Perhaps Holt had already made up her mind before boarding, perhaps command of a new ship had been more strain than she had admitted. Sabrina would never know.

She pushed harder, letting the incline rise. The sound of her breathing filled the empty space in her head. One stride after another until her legs burned and her lungs begged her to stop.

Victorious, she punched the end of the run and let the belt slow beneath her feet. Sweat beaded along her temples as her breathing steadied. Then, the real work began.

She slipped on her well-worn gloves and queued her personal program on the wall console. StrongLifts 5x5, Week 112.

Squat, bench, row. Simple. Predictable. Measured.

Squat: 100 kilograms.

The first set always bit hardest. Knees aligned, spine firm, breath drawn deep. Down, up. Down, up. The sound of plates shifting was almost soothing. Every repetition stripped another layer of thought, manifests, officer evaluations, Holt’s name in her inbox, gone. All that remained was form, balance, breath.

She added a plate for the second set. The bar flexed slightly, metal groaning against gravity. The exertion steadied her. The harder she worked, the quieter her mind became, until it was just rhythm and resolve.

Bench press: 60 kilograms.

Her hands wrapped around the cold knurling, bar poised above her chest. The weight pressed down like gravity, steady and impartial. She pushed through each rep until her triceps burned, until her control was the only thing keeping the motion clean.

Barbell row: 50 kilograms.

Each pull drew her back into focus, shoulders tight, core braced, breath timed with the lift. It wasn’t grace she sought here; it was clarity.

By the time she racked the final bar, sweat had darkened the back of her shirt, and her muscles hummed with quiet exhaustion. She stood still for a long moment, heart rate slowly descending to match the steady hum of the Arawyn’s engines.

There was power in restraint, she thought. Not the loud kind, but the contained sort, the same energy she used on the bridge, in crisis, when composure was everything.

Back in her quarters, the lights were low, the air cool. Ptolemy stirred from his perch on the couch, stretching and emitting a chirp of greeting. She smiled faintly and set a hand down for him to nudge.

“Alright, you menace,” she murmured. “Give me five minutes.”

The bath filled with gentle steam, scented faintly with chamomile and bergamot. She sank in slowly, muscles loosening under the heat. Ptolemy padded along the tub’s edge, tail flicking, chirping as though to comment on her form.

She let out a quiet laugh. “You’re terrible company for reflection, you know that?”

He meowed back, unabashed.

She leaned her head against the rim, eyes half-closed. For a few blessed minutes, there were no reports, no replacements to consider, only the soft murmur of water, the cat’s curious chattering, and the echo of her own heartbeat beneath it all.

Tomorrow, she would begin again.

 

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