Nowhere Left to Go

Posted on 03 Feb 2025 @ 1:32pm by Crewman Mateo Gardel

762 words; about a 4 minute read

Personal Log, Stardate 69405.2
Mateo Gardel, Laboratory Technician, USS Galileo

It’s been two weeks aboard Galileo, and already, I can feel the walls closing in.

Not just physically—though the jump from a Galaxy-class starship to a Nova-class one makes everything feel tighter. More compact. Like the bulkheads are pressing in. But it’s not just that. It’s the weight of knowing there’s nowhere left to run. The pressure of realizing that every step I take, every word I say, might decide whether I get to stay in Starfleet or get sent packing with nothing but my regrets.

Getting here wasn’t easy. It took six months—six months of being shuttled from one transport to another, leapfrogging across sectors, one faceless transport after another. No permanence. No roots. Just a name on a transfer order, waiting for the next place to not belong. By the time I finally stepped off the last shuttle at Regula 1, I felt more like cargo than crew. And for what?

It’s not like this feels any different from the rest of my Starfleet career. I’ve been tossed from one assignment to the next so many times, it barely registers anymore. Every time I put down roots, I get pulled up again. Every time I start to settle, someone decides I’d be better off somewhere else—anywhere else. I tell myself I don’t care—that I like keeping to myself, that I don’t need people the way they seem to need each other—but even independence starts to feel hollow when there’s never anyone around who really sees you.

I don’t make friends easily, I know that. I keep people at a distance on purpose. It’s safer that way. But even when I try, what’s the point? By the time I manage to lower my guard, it’s time to move on again. Another ship, another lab, another set of faces I won’t remember, because they never had the chance to know me in the first place.

And the worst part? I can’t even blame Starfleet entirely. Yeah, they keep sending me away. But I’ve given them every excuse to. I’ve made sure no one has a reason to fight for me to stay.

Some days, I wonder if they sent me this far just to make sure I wouldn't find my way back. I know what my past supervisors thought of me—difficult, frustrating, too much trouble to be worth the effort. Galileo doesn’t feel like a reassignment. It feels like exile.

I knew this was my last chance when I got my orders. There’s no next assignment after this, no convenient transfer to another ship where I get to start over. If I fail here, that’s it. Career over. No ceremony, no fanfare—just a one-way trip back to Earth, back to Renata and Benji, back to the same suffocating expectation that I should have done better.

I keep asking myself if I even deserve this chance. Every mistake, every bad decision, every assignment I barely held onto long enough to call it mine—it all adds up to a list of reasons why I shouldn’t still be here. I’ve spent six months trying to convince myself that I won’t screw this up the way I have everything else. But I don’t know if I believe it.

The worst part is, I know I’m smart. I know I can do the work. But knowing isn’t enough. It never has been. If it were, I wouldn’t be here, clinging to my last chance like it’s a lifeline.

And what happens if I fail? If I can’t make something of myself here, if I wash out like everyone expects me to, then what? Do I go back home, tail between my legs, and watch the light in Renata’s eyes dim as she realizes all that hope she had for me was wasted? Do I listen to Benji try to tell me it’s fine, that I can find something else, while we both know I threw away the best thing I ever had?

I don’t want to be a disappointment. Not to them. Not to myself.

I don’t know what happens next. But I know one thing—I can’t run this time. There’s nowhere left to go.

End log.

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