The Last Door on Earth, Part I

Posted on Wed Jun 4th, 2025 @ 7:14pm by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil

2,263 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: 6 Weeks Ago

He felt the goosebumps on his arms raise.

It was just after 0500 when Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil slipped into the frigid current of the Bay. The stars had faded from the sky but the sun hadn't yet risen. Only the faintest line of blue began to spread like a bruise along the horizon. He moved through the water like some shadow turned to flesh, strokes deliberate and steady, cutting a path between the red sprawl of the Golden Gate Bridge and the broken silhouette of Alcatraz Island.

Each stroke was slow and methodical. JB wasn't built for speed-he didn't need speed. He needed ritual. He needed to feel the ache of his limbs and the sting of salt in his eyes to remind him that his body still answered to him and him alone. That this--this--was not just some dream from which he would wake to find himself at that desk, still in that room, still reading classified death counts over a cup of stale coffee.

He turned his head for a longer breath, catching a glimpse of the bridge.

Built to endure.

Suspended in tension.

Held aloft between two immovable shores.

And then to the other side--Alcatraz. A fortress for the condemned, now a popular museum. Some crumbling relic of the past's punishments. How fitting, he thought, to swim between an engineering marvel and a centuries-old penitentiary. How fitting that his life had now come to straddle both.

The cold was sharp enough now to bite the nerves in his fingers. But he welcomed it. The only thing more dangerous than pain was forgetting what the pain was meant to feel like.

By the time he reached the pier, his chest was heaving and his breath plumed like smoke rising through the crisp morning air. He hauled himself up the metal ladder, dripping and completely breathless, and sat for a long moment with the horizon at his back and the city still half-asleep behind him.

Somewhere out there, the Astrea cut its path through the stars, unknowingly approaching a new addition to her crew. And here he was, a man in the water. Not quite drowning but not quite free.

* * *

Location: Junior Officer Quarters, Starfleet Headquarters


JB stood in front of the mirror, a towel slung low around his waist, the steam of the shower still thick in the air. His quarters--like most assigned to field officers on Earth--were spartan but not without charm. The view from his window held a sliver of the Bay between two high-rises, the dawn light now bleeding across the water. He watched it for a moment, then turned back to the man in the glass.

His hands moved on autopilot. Undershirt. Uniform pants. Tunic. The slow mechanical motions of a man preparing for duty. Only there was no duty today. Not anymore.

He hesitated at the collar clasp. The silver pip at his throat caught the light just enough that it drew his eye via the mirror. For a moment, he imagined it was blood.

And then it came again, unbidden--the sound of voices over comms, distorted and desperate. Forty-seven civilians. Nine Starfleet personnel. Seventy-six inhabitants of a planet that had applied for Federation membership. All dead in less than twenty seconds. On his order.

He gripped the sink.

Admiral Spyvee had said these were acceptable losses. "Tragic, but necessary."

Necessary. Necessary?

He leaned over the sink and heaved. Once. Twice. The bile tasted of seawater and what JB had come to believe as self-loathing.

When it passed, he wiped his mouth, rinsed his face, and stood again. His eyes met their reflection.

He could still hear the applause. The commendation ceremony had been small, by Intelligence standards--maybe twenty people. A quiet affair. No fanfare. No brass bands. Just a tiny room full of polished boots and perfunctory smiles. "For decisiveness in an emergent threat scenario," the citation read. "For clarity under duress."

But the worst part wasn't the applause. It was the silence afterwards.

The way people didn't meet his gaze in the corridors. The sudden hush when he entered a room. The offers to work remotely. The lack of eye contact from the junior officers and non-comms who had once fetched coffee for him.

The silence said what no words ever could.

He finished dressing, every movement deliberate. Tunic sealed. Boots polished. The uniform fit just as it always had. But it didn't feel like a uniform anymore. It felt like farcical costume now.

He retrieved the small case from his desk and checked its contents: a data PADD, a personal effects token, and a folded piece of paper--actual paper. A letter from his sister, written in ink, something about the tactile experience seemed to warm his fingers and his heart. He hadn't opened it yet.

Today, he would be meeting with Commander Birzruk. Today, he would put Starfleet Intelligence behind him.

He clipped on his combadge and took a slow, deep breath before striding out of his quarters.

* * *

Location: Strategic Operations Command, Starfleet Headquarters


The ride to Starfleet's Strategic Operations HQ took less than ten minutes by hover tram. The building rose like a slab of granite from the northwestern campus grounds--less elegant than the adjacent Starfleet Security building, but no less important. Strat-Ops rarely made headlines, but it was the spine behind the posture of the fleet.

Commander Birzruk's office was best described as utilitarian. A wall of digital tactical maps in one corner. A low, rectangular desk covered in blinking LCARS modules. A small holosculpture of a hairless blue canine Jean-Baptiste assumed was a family pet, very much incongruous beside the neat row of commendations. A long window the looked out over the campus and the city beyond.

The Tellarite rose when JB entered, offering a deep-throated grunt that served as both a greeting and a directive.

"Lieutenant Dorsainvil. Sit. Let's get to it."

JB obeyed, settling into the hard chair. Birzruk didn't waste any time with pleasantries.

"I've reviewed your file. Your background in threat modeling and comparative power dynamics is... impressive. Ideal, in fact, for our Beta Quadrant posturing unit. You'll be working with a small team focused on Nausicaan activity in the Lekethra Corridor. Mostly trend analysis, but we liaise directly with fleet logistics and defense planning. It's meaningful work."

Birzruk paused. "My only question for you is... why leave Intelligence now?"

JB didn't look away. "Because I need to work somewhere where truth is still a currency."

The Tellarite snorted. "Then you're in the wrong galaxy. But I love your idealism. We can use it."

JB allowed himself a tiny flicker of hope. A small lift of the shoulders. He opened his mouth to respond when the door to the office slid open abruptly.

They both turned.

Admiral Lachlan Spyvee filled the room like a northwestern monsoon off the Coral Sea--broad-shouldered, dressed sharply, and weathered by decades of work done in places the record often didn't name. His beard was trimmed to regulation, but full--salt overtaking the pepper. And his presence was unmistakably Australian, in that particular way older Terran men from the southern hemisphere carried themselves: no wasted movement, no tolerance for any delay.

"Commander Birzruk," Spyvee said, voice smooth, deep and unhurried. "You can leave us now."

Birzruk's mouth opened slightly for a solid three seconds as if he was about to protest the order. Almost as quickly, the Tellarite closed his mouth, nodded, and scurried for the door.

"Commander," said Spyvee.

The Tellarite paused at the door and turned.

"You were considering an application. That consideration is concluded."

Birzruk looked to Jean-Baptiste and then back to the Admiral. He swallowed, nodded, and left quickly.

Spyvee waited for the door to shut before speaking again.

"You've made quite the mess, son."

JB didn't flinch. "I tendered a formal resignation. There is no mess."

Spyvee studied his protege for a moment, raising an eyebrow. "Why are you seated?" Before JB could respond, the Admiral's voice boomed, "When I speak, you are to stand at attention."

He was on his feet and completely rigid just as it had been drilled into him at the Academy. Though, his time in Intelligence rarely called for any ceremony--never a salute, rarely more than a 'sir' or 'ma'am'. He found this exercise to be Spyvee's way to bend him.

Satisfied with JB's stance, Spyvee's eyes narrowed slightly. "Resignations are for civilians. You're not one yet."

"I will be--if necessary."

The Admiral let that hang in the air. Then he walked to the desk between them and placed both hands on it, leaning forward slightly--just enough to make it clear he wasn't posturing. Just stating.

"I've spent a decade grooming analysts," he said. "They come and go. Most are soft. Most are clever, but slow. You were different. Are different."

JB didn't reply. He'd let the old man bluster and thunder until his ego was satiated.

Spyvee's eyes held his. "Bryn'kal Three should've broken you. But it didn't. That's rare. That's useful."

Jean-Baptiste's jaw clenched. "One hundred thirty-two lives. Nine Starfleet officers. My name on the order."

"My signature on the clearance," Spyvee corrected smoothly. "Don't forget that. You didn't act without authorization."

"Didn't I?" JB's voice was low, measured. With his body still at full attention, he stared straight ahead past the Admiral. "You pushed. I clicked. And then I spent the night vomiting into a toilet, wondering what that makes me."

Spyvee shrugged, expression unreadable. "It makes you effective. You ended a threat others would've hesitated on. What happened on Bryn'kal Three wasn't pleasant. But it was necessary. You think command doesn't see it that way? They gave you a bloody commendation."

"Awards don't cleanse blood."

"Neither do regrets."

That stopped the conversation for a beat. Spyvee stepped around the desk and crossed the room slowly, hands clasped behind his back as if he was taking a leisurely stroll in his garden. When he spoke again, his voice softened just enough to sound personal.

"You have a talent for this work. Reading chaos, seeing the patterns, knowing where it's going before it gets there. That doesn't go away because you feel bad about doing your job." Spyvee stood at the window and stared southward across the Starfleet Headquarters complex. He added softly, "At ease, son."

Jean-Baptiste relaxed visibly but the fiery resentment remained in his eyes.

"I don't feel bad about doing my job," JB said. "I feel disgusted that my name is being used to cover yours."

Spyvee turned sharply, eyes flaring. "Son, when I found you, you were headed for a career as a ship's counselor. Just look what you've become under my tutelage. So watch yourself."

"I have," JB replied coolly. "For years. I've watched myself become the kind of officer I swore I'd never become. And I've watched the people around me learn not to look me in the eye."

Spyvee rolled his head from one side to other as if to mimic being wishy-washy. "Too right! They don't look at you because they're afraid of you," he said. "They see what you are: a tactical prodigy with the stones to make the calls they can't. They respect you."

"No," JB said quietly. "They fear that I'm some mechanical extension of you."

Spyvee turned to study him for a long moment. "So that's it. All this philosophy, all this conscience. You want to throw it all away because your colleagues don't send you party invites?"

Jean-Baptiste's tone became softer. "I want to sleep again. I want to stop measuring morality by body counts. I want a job where I'm not expected to weigh the value of lives based on statistical likelihoods."

Spyvee's jaw tightened, his eyes growing harder. "You think you're too good for the grey. But the grey is all there is."

"I know," JB said. He stepped forward. Calm. Grounded. "And I know I can't walk through it without a compass. I won't do it blind anymore."

There was something old and sorrowful in his tone now. Something that came from long hours spent with sacred texts and not enough answers. He murmured, almost to himself:

"The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more under the perfect day."

Spyvee blinked. "Scripture?"

"Proverbs," JB said. "My mother's favourite."

A long pause passed between them.

Then Spyvee stepped forward again--towering now--and said in a voice like frosted iron, "If you leave, you'll be nothing. I can make sure of that."

Jean-Baptiste reached up, unclipped his combadge, and placed it gently on the desk between them. "Then I'll be nothing. But I'll be free."

The silence crackled like a live wire. Then Spyvee slowly reached down and picked up the combadge. He studied it, then--almost tenderly--reattached it to JB's uniform.

"Fine," he said, voice now eerily calm. "You want out? You're out. Go find yourself a post on the edge of nowhere. Somewhere you can feel righteous without being useful."

He turned, hand on the door panel. "Just know this, Jean-Baptiste: You'll never serve on Earth again--or any of the core worlds. Not as long as I have something to say about it."

The door opened. Spyvee didn't look back.

And then he was gone.

JB remained where he stood, his breath quiet, his pulse beginning to ease. It was done. The chain that had held him since the Academy--now cut.

Whatever came next would be his alone to carry.

* * *

Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil

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