What Remains
Posted on Sat Jan 24th, 2026 @ 4:05pm by Commander Mariko Tao
Edited on on Mon Jan 26th, 2026 @ 5:56pm
605 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission:
Episode 3 - The One Who Got Away
Location: Mariko’s Quarters – Deck 4 – USS Artemis
Timeline: MD001 2330 hrs
Mariko’s quarters were dimmer than usual, the lights set low and warm rather than functional. Her uniform lay folded where she’d left it, precise even in rest. She hadn’t bothered replicating a meal. Instead, she stood at the small counter, waiting for the kettle to finish heating, hands loosely clasped behind her back.
The ship felt different tonight.
Not quieter in sound — quieter in pressure. The kind that followed a decision once it was no longer theoretical. The verdict had been delivered. Arguments made. Lines held. Whatever history would eventually say about it, her part was finished.
She poured the tea without rushing, watching the steam rise, then carried the cup to the low table by the window. Bajor was no longer in view. Only stars, scattered and indifferent. She sat, legs folded beneath her, and took a sip.
It tasted steady. Familiar.
For the first time since the trial concluded, Mariko allowed herself to sit with the weight of it — not to replay it, not to justify it, but simply to acknowledge that it had happened. That they had all carried something heavy, and that setting it down did not mean it vanished.
She exhaled slowly.
“I hate this part,” she murmured, the words barely audible.
Not the work. Not the responsibility. This. The aftermath. The silence where answers were supposed to be.
Her jaw tightened. People talked about justice as if it were an ending. As if once the verdict was spoken, the universe settled into place. She had never found that to be true. Not on Anbara-sei. Not in the Diplomatic Corps. Not here.
Someone had lost a father. A mother. A child.
Someone always did.
She rubbed at her eyes, harder than she would have allowed herself to in public, and let the tension sit where it was instead of pushing it away. No one needed her composed right now. No one was watching.
That, more than anything, was what made it hurt.
Her gaze drifted to the dark window and, without quite meaning to, a memory surfaced — a night on Anbara-sei, years ago. A neighbour’s son, gone in an accident so small and unremarkable it felt cruel in its ordinariness. Lanterns extinguished one by one. Voices lowering. People doing all the right things.
She remembered asking her mother, Is this supposed to feel finished?
It hadn’t then.
It didn’t now.
Mariko let her shoulders drop and spoke softly, not as ceremony, not as belief, but as acknowledgement — words shaped by habit and heritage rather than formality.
「終わった者たちに安らぎを。残された者たちに力を。」
(Peace to those whose paths have ended. Strength to those who remain.)
She inclined her head slightly, not toward any altar or symbol — simply in respect. For the dead. For the living. For the weight of judgement that could never truly be set down.
The tea had cooled. She noticed only when she took another sip. It tasted thin. She frowned faintly at that, then let it go. Some things didn’t need fixing tonight.
She stood after a moment — not because she was ready, but because staying still felt heavier than moving. Tomorrow would ask things of her again. It always did.
Tonight didn’t.
Mariko dimmed the lights a fraction more and let the quiet settle. The ship hummed around her, steady and unconcerned, carrying on as it always had.
She didn’t feel better.
She hadn’t expected to.
And for now, that was enough.
A Post By
Commander Mariko Tao
Executive Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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