The Weight of Survival
Posted on Wed Sep 24th, 2025 @ 9:05pm by Ensign Kaelun Merak & Lieutenant Richard Pierce MD
1,975 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Collating Data
Location: Promanade - Starbase 343
The promenade was alive with the hum of laughter, conversation, and the clink of glasses — sounds Kaelun hadn’t heard without an edge of tension in months. He slipped into one of the quieter bars along the ring, pausing just inside the doorway. Almost without thinking, his hand brushed the edge of his jawline, fingertips tapping twice in a rhythmic gesture. It was an old habit from Toval, a former host who had been a lecturer — a way of gathering thoughts before stepping into a room.
Kaelun’s eyes swept the patrons until they landed on a familiar face, one he didn’t know personally but recognized from the Crazy Horse’s roster: Dr. Richard Pierce, Chief Medical Officer. The man sat alone in a corner with a drink, shoulders heavy with the kind of wear Kaelun had seen too often since Earth.
He drew a steadying breath, dropped his hand, and crossed the room. “Doctor Pierce, isn’t it?” Kaelun said, inclining his head. “Ensign Kaelun Merak — Science Division. We haven’t met, but I recognized you from the roster.”
Dr. Pierce glanced up from the amber glass he’d been nursing, eyes narrowing just a fraction in the way of a man not used to being pulled from his thoughts. The corners of his mouth twitched — not quite a smile, but the shadow of one.
“Ensign Merak,” he said, voice low and rough, as though the words had to scrape their way out. “That’s a hell of a memory you’ve got, pulling me out of a roster instead of a sickbay.”
He set the glass down, pushing it an inch away as if to remind himself he hadn’t come here to drown, only to quiet the noise in his head. One hand gestured loosely at the empty seat across from him.
“Most folks leave the Chief Medical Officer to his brooding when he skulks off-duty. But—” his brow arched slightly, curiosity threading through the gravel in his tone, “—I take it you’ve got more than small talk on your mind?”
Kaelun slipped into the seat opposite, setting his glass down before answering. His smile was faint but genuine.
“Not so much memory as preparation,” he admitted. “When Captain Raz told me I’d be serving aboard the Crazy Horse, I made a point of studying the roster. After what happened at Earth, I didn’t want to be walking in blind. Your face stood out — not just because you’re the CMO, but because, frankly, the survival rate of medical officers in Borg encounters isn’t exactly encouraging. Seeing you still on the list told me there’d be someone worth learning from.”
He paused, fingers tracing the rim of his glass in slow, thoughtful circles — another one of Toval’s habits, a way of anchoring the mind in a conversation.
“I was hoping to ask,” he continued, his voice quieting. “Since the attacks… how has it been? Not just patching wounds or keeping people breathing, but… being in Sickbay, watching what the Borg leave behind. I can only imagine the weight of that.” Kaelun let the question hang for a moment, then leaned forward slightly, his tone softening as he tried to bridge the distance.
Pierce let out a slow breath through his nose, leaning back in his chair as though the words themselves were heavy enough to need space. His gaze wandered to the shelves of bottles behind the bar before finding its way back to Kaelun.
“You imagine right,” he said, voice low, carrying the rasp of exhaustion rather than drink. “Sickbay after a Borg engagement isn’t medicine. It’s triage with a clock ticking down in your ear. You don’t fix people — you buy them minutes, maybe hours, and you pray someone else gets them far enough away from the fight to matter.”
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, hand shaking just slightly before he steadied it with a fist on the table.
“The weight isn’t the blood, or the screaming. You learn to live with that, God help you. The weight is the faces. The crewman you patched up three weeks ago comes back mangled worse, or doesn’t come back at all. You wonder if the hours you poured into keeping them alive were worth it, or just cruelty stretched thin.”
For a moment, silence hung between them, pierced only by the murmur of the bar. Then a wry, bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Still. You learn fast, Ensign — the Borg don’t leave much room for reflection. You put your head down, keep the staff moving, and tell yourself that every breath you can save is a win. That’s the job. That’s what’s left of it.”
Pierce let the words trail off, his jaw working as though there was more he could say but no strength to push it past his teeth. He picked up his glass again, rolling the liquid once before setting it down untouched.
Then he fixed Kaelun with a steady look, not sharp but heavy, the kind of gaze that carried both weariness and a quiet insistence.
“You asked me how it’s been,” he said, voice softer now, almost roughened by the honesty of it. “But that’s not a one-way street. Science officer or not, you were there. You saw the aftermath too — maybe not under the same lights I did, but it leaves marks all the same.”
His brow furrowed, and he leaned forward just slightly, forearms resting on the table.
“So tell me, Ensign. How has it been for you? What’s the weight you’ve been carrying since Earth?”
Kaelun’s fingers tightened around his glass, though he didn’t lift it. For a long moment, he stared at the way the light bent through the liquid, as if the right answer might crystallize if he looked hard enough.
“It’s been…” He exhaled slowly, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of the word. “It’s been carrying ghosts, Doctor. Too many of them.”
He looked up, his eyes steady but tired. “I made it off Earth. I shouldn’t have, not when I saw hundreds die trying to push their way onto transports that were already sealed, or trampled in the panic before the Borg even touched them. And when the Borg did—” his voice thinned for a moment before he forced it steady, “—people went from terrified civilians to something unrecognizable in the space of a heartbeat. I can still see their faces. I can still hear them screaming.”
His hand loosened from the glass, fingers flattening against the table as though he needed to ground himself. “Survivor’s guilt, I suppose you’d call it. I was a research officer at Starfleet Medical, buried in labs and models. I wasn’t supposed to make it out when so many didn’t. I wasn’t supposed to end up on a combat ship. And yet here I am, wearing the uniform, trying to figure out what my place is now.”
Kaelun’s gaze drifted away for a moment, to some invisible memory only he could see. “Part of the answer comes from a past host. Jaret Nahl — a Marine. His instincts… they’ve kept me alive. Situational awareness, posture, knowing when to square my shoulders so I don’t crack in front of others. But those same instincts don’t sit well in a scientist’s skin. They push me to act when maybe I should think, to strike when maybe I should study. That tension—” he tapped his temple lightly, “—never stops.”
He leaned back slightly, his voice quieter now. “And then there’s the question of what my skills are even for. Do I spend my life’s work turning science into a weapon because that’s what the war demands? Or do I hold the line, keep to Starfleet’s ideals, and focus on knowledge for the Federation’s betterment? Part of me believes that if I abandon those ideals, then I’ve already let the Borg win. But another part whispers that if I don’t bend those skills toward survival, then we won’t be here long enough for ideals to matter.”
His jaw tightened, and he finally met Pierce’s gaze again. “That’s the weight I’m carrying, Doctor. Not knowing which version of myself will keep the Federation alive — the scientist, or the Marine.”
Pierce listened without interruption, eyes steady on Kaelun even when the younger man’s gaze drifted. His hand flexed once against the table, then stilled, as though he knew better than to try and soften what couldn’t be softened.
When Kaelun finished, Popeye let a silence hang for a beat longer, letting the words settle between them. Finally, he leaned forward, forearms braced against the table, voice low but carrying the gravel of lived truth.
“Survivor’s guilt,” he said. “Yeah. I know it well. You can name it, dress it up in clinical language if it helps, but it never really shrinks. Doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor, a Marine, or a scientist — it sits on your chest at three in the morning and asks why you made it when so many didn’t.”
He dragged a hand through his graying hair, the motion tired but firm. “The truth is, Ensign, there’s no right answer to that question you’re wrestling. Science or Marine, ideals or survival. The galaxy doesn’t hand you neat choices anymore. Some days you’ll have to be one, some days the other, and most days a messy, miserable mix of both. That’s the part they don’t tell you when you pin that combadge on.”
Pierce’s gaze softened just slightly, though the weight never left his eyes. “But here’s what I’ve learned after too many years patching up people who thought they had to be one thing or the other. You don’t get to choose who you are in the abstract. You choose in the moment — in the middle of the chaos, when someone’s life is hanging on what you decide in ten seconds flat. That’s when you’ll find out which version of you the Federation really needs.”
He reached for his glass, but didn’t drink — only held it, grounding himself as Kaelun had earlier. “And when you do make that call — whether you like the version of yourself it shows or not — you live with it. You carry it. Because that’s what the uniform demands. And if you can still look in a mirror afterward and say you haven’t given up on what Starfleet means? Then you’re doing better than most.”
He finally raised the glass in a small, rough salute before taking a swallow. “So don’t break your head trying to decide in advance which version of you is right. Life will make that decision for you soon enough. The only choice you’ve really got is whether you face it head-on… or let it crush you.”
Kaelun finally raised the glass in return, tapping it gently against Pierce’s before taking a measured sip. The burn steadied him, even if only for a moment. “Either way, Doctor, you’re right about one thing — life won’t give me the luxury of overthinking it for long. And when the moment comes, I’ll face it head-on. That much, at least, I can promise.”
He set the glass down, the faintest edge of a smile softening his expression. “Until then… I think I’ll take shore leave one drink at a time.”
Lt Richard Pierce MD
Chief Medical Officer
USS Crazy Horse
Ens. Kaelun Marek
Science Officer
USS Crazy Horse
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