Echoes In The Quiet
Posted on Mon Jul 14th, 2025 @ 2:48pm by Senior Chief Petty Officer Dex Ravaro
Edited on on Mon Jul 14th, 2025 @ 10:57pm
1,106 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2 - The Sins of History
Location: Main Mess Hall – Deck 5 – USS Artemis
Timeline: MD013 – 2045 hrs (Three hours after Harlow’s death)
The mess hall had quieted.
The earlier buzz of shift change had dulled to a low murmur—just the occasional scrape of utensils, faint laughter, the thrum of the ship’s life support running beneath the skin of the deck. This late, it felt subdued. Drowsy. Vulnerable.
Dex liked it this way.
He sat at his usual table, back to the wall, eyes on the room. He stirred a mug of tarkalean tea slowly, methodically, never lifting it to his lips. The warmth had already faded, but he’d never cared for taste. The ritual was enough. It looked normal. Comforting. Human.
He watched them.
Lieutenant Jun Rax. Sitting two tables over, hunched over his PADD like it owed him something. Fidgeting with his spoon. Sleeves too long. Eyes tired. He was trying to prove himself. Probably to a father who hadn’t spoken to him in ten years. Probably to himself.
Dex watched the twitch of his fingers. The tremble. The insecurity.
A boy, playing dress-up in a man’s uniform.
Weak.
He shifted his gaze.
Ensign T’Sar. Vulcan. Stoic. Predictable. She ate like it was a timed exercise—precisely portioned, efficiently consumed. Reading while chewing. No wasted motion.
Dex respected her.
But he didn’t trust her. Vulcans were dangerous—not because of their logic, but because of their arrogance. They believed themselves unshakeable.
They weren’t.
They just didn’t see the crack until it had already spread.
Petty Officer Hal Vurne. Tactical. Loud laugh, lazy stride, a lingering smell of something fried on his uniform. He hadn’t cleared his tray. Left it sitting there for someone else. Dex had seen him cut corners in drills. Not because he was stupid. Because he thought no one noticed.
He’d notice if someone died on his shift.
Dex filed the name away.
The door hissed open and someone else entered. Merel, the nurse. Fresh out of training. Always smiling. Too eager to help. Too eager to be liked. She waved at someone and nearly dropped her tray. Laughs like she’s apologising for existing.
Dex watched her for a moment longer than the others.
Empaths made easy prey. They gave too much of themselves.
She could be useful, he thought. If he needed grief. If he needed confusion. If he needed someone who’d blame themselves.
Not yet.
He sat back in his chair, letting the noise of the room ebb and wash over him. Small talk. Bite-size gossip. Stress relievers and idle jokes. All the things people did to feel safe. To pretend the walls around them couldn’t break. That a starship was a womb, not a coffin waiting to lose pressure.
They lied to themselves, and called it optimism.
Dex didn’t lie. Not to himself.
The crew still buzzed about Harlow. Quietly, respectfully, like they were afraid to speak the name too loudly in case it conjured something. A fault in the system, they said. A tragic malfunction. They looked to him—trusted, stable, steady Dex—for reassurance. For guidance.
And he’d given it to them.
He'd stood beside the body. Had looked at the scorched floor and furrowed his brow in concern. Had told Security to log everything—every detail, every scrap—because that’s what someone who cared would do.
And they believed it.
He was already shaping the narrative. Letting it twist gently around another name. Another thread. Another direction.
Dex’s fingers traced the rim of his cup again. Calm. Unhurried. The tea had long gone cold, but he didn’t move to refresh it.
He wasn’t done watching.
Crewman Delaire. Always last to leave. Always one more bite. A little too slow. A little too loud. That kind of hunger—emotional, not physical—usually came from abandonment. Or guilt.
Sometimes he wondered how many people in this room were already on borrowed time.
They just hadn’t stepped into the circle yet.
The circle.
That’s what he called it in his head—the invisible threshold someone crossed without knowing. A glance too long. A lie too obvious. A carelessness that whispered: not ready for this world.
Harlow had crossed it with a bump of the table and a nervous smile. That was enough. That was all it ever took.
Dex didn't need to think about him now. The work was done. The response logged. The grief in motion. A system had been nudged, and now it wobbled—quietly, uncertainly, in exactly the way he liked.
He sipped his tea, now completely cold.
Across the room, Merel glanced toward the corridor. Eyes glassy. She hadn’t slept properly since the call came in. Her mouth moved in conversation, but her mind wasn’t there. She’d stood over what was left of Harlow. She’d seen what a shower could do when it was just a little... off.
She wouldn’t stop thinking about that.
Not for days.
Rax avoided eye contact altogether. His tray remained full. His fingers tapped his PADD too fast, like the rhythm would drown the uncertainty. His breathing was shallow.
Vurne kept checking his commbadge, as if waiting for a call that wouldn’t come.
Dex catalogued all of it. Not with judgment. With purpose.
Grief, guilt, paranoia, defensiveness. These were currents, and he was already adjusting the sails.
He didn’t need to orchestrate every detail. Just the right ones.
A misplaced spanner. A forgotten strand of hair. Enough to make someone stutter under questioning. Enough to light a fuse in the Security office. Enough to start a search—and a scapegoat.
Dex would help, of course. Calmly. Thoughtfully. He’d offer guidance, emotional support, quiet advice. He’d even offer to mediate.
That’s what trusted men did.
That’s why no one looked at him twice.
The hum of the mess hall returned. Chairs scraped. Trays clattered. Life moved on. And somewhere inside that routine, a fracture was spreading beneath the deck plates.
Dex took one last sip and set the mug down gently.
Harlow was ash. The circle had closed.
And someone else—someone in this room—was already standing in the centre of the next one.
A Post By
Senior Chief Petty Officer Dex Ravaro
Chief of the Boat, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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