Sublevels and Subtext

Posted on Fri Jun 27th, 2025 @ 3:02am by Captain Remy Johansen & Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Josef Forstinger & Commander Irene Seya

2,305 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: How to See in the Dark
Location: Conference Venue, Barisa Prime
Timeline: 12 Days Ahead of the Conference

The service corridors beneath the conference centre were an unremarkable maze of brushed duranium panels, plastcrete flooring, and the sour smell of sterilizing agents. Jean-Baptiste moved through them at a languid pace, eyes flitting between the data PADD in his hand and the corridor junctions ahead. Dry storage. Kitchen. Staff lounge. Lavatories. The usual substructure arteries of a luxury venue--efficient and hidden. Also easily overlooked. Which was, in his experience, precisely where trouble liked to start.

The conference was still twelve days out, but the venue was already alive with movement. Somewhere above, a wedding was set to take place soon--he could hear the sound of stringed instruments through the floor, faint eruptions of laughter, and even the unmistakable clang of dropped cutlery. He sidestepped a breathless waiter carrying a floral arrangement the size of a shuttlepod and offered a polite nod to a pair of porters pushing an anti-grav trolley loaded with champagne cases. No one looked at him twice. At least that was a comfort.

His survey complete, JB took the lift to the main floor. The doors parted smoothly and he stepped out into the lobby, where architecture and opulence seemed to go hand-in-hand. Vaulted ceilings arched above like the ribs of some alabaster leviathan. Polished stone underfoot gleamed in pale hues of ivory and gold. The light here felt soft and warm--as if it was deliberately made to flatter faces and reputations.

As he crossed the lobby, he spotted the woman to whom he'd been assigned.

"No tunnels. No forgotten hatches. Just a lot of very expensive wine and an astonishing number of storage closets." He paused, glancing up at the chandeliers above them. "Still. I wouldn't call it secure."

"No, we will need a proper survey of what can be done to secure the facility, and how much manpower it will take," Irene agreed. "They were supposed to be done hosting events before we took possession of the venue two days ago, did you find out how this wedding even managed to stay on the schedule?" She asked. "It's making it impossible for us to perform accurate surveillance of the site." Though she tended to keep her emotions mostly tempered, one could sense a slight irritation in her voice.

"I heard it’s some business magnate’s son," Jean-Baptiste said, his gaze drifting to the grand staircase that swept up toward the mezzanine. "The centre's director of operations claims it’s the final event on the calendar. We should have the place to ourselves starting tomorrow, ma'am." He tapped a few notes into his PADD, then turned to face Irene, tone shifting just slightly. "What do you say to a quiet drink? Nothing official—just something friendly."

Irene took a look around at the venue, the staff for the wedding seemingly growing busy by the minute. "It doesn't look like we will be getting much done here tonight anyway."

Irene turned off her PADD and placed it into her bag. "Is there someplace nearby?"

He smiled at the Seya. "I know just the place."


The Neutral Zone Bar


The bar was called The Neutral Zone, though no one seemed quite sure whether the name was meant to be political, historical, or simply a bad joke. It was wedged between a boutique gallery and a dive that stank like sour engine coolant, occupying some odd liminal space of establishments that couldn't decide whether they were sophisticated or simply well-lit.

It sat across from a gently curving beach where the sand was white as bone and the ocean shimmered in silvers and rose-gold, the sky already beginning its slow descent into twilight. The place was half-empty at this hour--far too late for the conference types to grab lunch and much too early for the drinking crowd. Which was, of course, why Jean-Baptiste had suggested it.

They were seated at a table next to the bar, a long piece of polished driftwood lined with low stools and a view of the water through ten-foot panes of glass that retracted when the wind was fair. The air had a faint marine saltiness that always seemed to disinfect the day's worst conversations.

"I found this place last week," Jean-Baptiste said, nodding toward the bar menu with a slight smile. "It's got an interesting flavour." He slowly looked around the room with curiosity--like a child at a theme park. "This layover has been a kind of reset for me. Mind, body--everything. Not what I expected, but maybe that's what I needed." He glanced sidelong at Irene, the ocean light catching faintly in his eyes.

"What about you, Commander? Do you ever take the time to enjoy the locales you visit in your work?"

"I try to when I am able," Irene stated. "It is one reason why many of us join Starfleet, isn't it? to see the world."

"Have you had sufficient time for the reset you mentioned? I can certainly rotate you off of the duty schedule we prepared if you would like more time to yourself. I know this project was unexpected," she offered.

Jean-Baptiste gave a small shake of his head. "I'm fine on the rotation. Keeps me engaged. Keeps me thinking." He took a slow sip of his drink--something floral with a bitter finish, which tasted remarkably similar to gin. "This place..." he began again, softer now, "It's calm. Even when it's not. And I think I needed that more than I realized."

There was a flicker in his eyes then--something harder, something less at ease. He looked down briefly, tracing the rim of his glass with a fingertip. "Back on Earth, things didn't feel calm. At least not where I was." He laughed softly--a tight, dry little laugh. "Intelligence has always had its shadows, but lately? It feels like the shadows are swallowing the map. People vanishing from postings with no explanation. Operations greenlit without oversight. Data scrubbed, reports overwritten, permissions revoked retroactively." He didn't look at Irene as he spoke, letting the words drift casually like gossip. "What have you been hearing?"

"It's just hard to believe that the last five or six years would have played out the way that they had if there had not been a faction already in place set out to make major changes in Starfleet." Out of habit, Irene looked around the bar and took in her surrounds. "Whether it rises to the level of the conspiracy theories that have been floated, I am not sure. I suppose anything is possible."

"Anything is possible," he echoed quietly. "Though in Intelligence, we were taught not to start with what's possible. Start with what's probable. Then--if you're lucky--you get to glimpse the shape of what's hiding just outside the frame." He didn't look her, not yet. His eyes traced the pale horizon instead, where the sea kissed the sky like a breath held for too long.

"What is it that you propose is probable?" Irene asked.

Jean-Baptiste lifted his glass and examined its contents with mild curiosity. "Probable?" he repeated. "Forget the rumours--let me tell you what I've witnessed firsthand." He took larger sip and set the glass down heavily on the wooden bar top. "I've had mission authorizations vanish from the system between departure and arrival. One day I'm cleared for classified briefings; the next, I'm being told I never should have seen them. I've watched teams get reassigned mid-deployment with no debrief. Names redacted from internal logs after the fact--sometimes whole departments." He smiled ruefully. "I once had a colleague who disappeared from our entire directory. No transfer orders. No EOS. Gone. Like she'd never worn the uniform."

He finally turned to look at Irene, gauging her reaction. "Gate san!" he said animatedly. ("Rotten blood!") Jean-Baptiste drew in a long breath. "Talking like that, I sound like I should be sectioned to the psych unit."

"Not at all," Irene shook her head. "I have been a part of redirecting orders at times. We're not always at liberty to question the changes either."

"The colleague that disappeared as you say... What was her alignment, or was it known?" Irene asked.

He tilted his head slightly, considering the question. "Alignment?" he echoed. "I doubt she had one. Not politically, anyway." Jean-Baptiste knew better than to divulge that kind of information in an uncontrolled environment--especially a beach bar with a dozen ears near. His trust did not yet extend to Irene. Not fully. He took another drink from his glass while he chose his next words carefully.

"She was an analyst--just like me," he said, slow and measured. "She logged something that got the attention of someone." He studied Irene for a moment. He felt comfortable working with her but not comfy enough to lean on her. He added, "Her area of expertise was the Tal Shiar."

"I don't even know if Tal Shiar could be considered experts on Tal Shiar," Irene commented. It had been her experience in working with Romulans that their system was deliberately designed so that the right hand hand would not know what the left hand was doing. She had heard that this fostered distrust even within their own agencies. It was Romulan accountability. You never knew who was watching.

Irene nodded as a tall individual with dark hair and pale ivory skin approached their table. "Can I get you two started with something to drink or some appetizers today?"

Jean-Baptiste gestured eagerly toward his nearly-empty glass.

The waiter smiled. "A sea-blossom gin coming up." He turned to Irene. "And for you?"

Irene gave the server a polite smile. "A glass of the Grenache, and the fruit and cheese plate. Thank you."

Meanwhile, the two could start hearing noises coming from the Establishments Kitchen, slowly getting louder as it seemed to approach the Kitchen door and transfer over to the Bar area. Now they could hear it, the distinct sounds of Ferengi screeching.

"YOU SMALL-LOBED GRUBWORM." One voice screetched as they could hear the clattering of pans. Another voice responded "YOU PENNYSTOCK PINCHING CHARITY CASE" with the breaking of some kind of glass.

It was the Brothers Baba and Geva-in one of their classic arguments. They both had a sense of business-but somehow ended up always in each others hair-or well-lobes. Fighting with each other once again before entering the Bar area-and noticing that customers were indeed present. Which quickly put a stop to their argument. Geva retreating back into the Kitchen as Baba took his place at the bar.

"You've been here before?" Irene asked as she raised an eyebrow at the commortion.

Jean-Baptiste gave a small smile, trying not to wince as a plate shattered somewhere out of sight.

"Only once before," he said, eyes trailing after the Ferengi as they retreated in a flurry of muttered slurs and rattling cutlery. "Though it was quieter then. Less airborne crockery."

What appeared to be an ordinary family of three walked out onto the patio for a table escorted by the hostess. A young female with delicate features and dark hair, and who appeared to be the age of a human teenager and could have been the couple's daughter seemed to recognize the uniforms of Starfleet. As she noticed Irene and Jean-Baptiste at their table, her eyes fixated on Jean-Baptiste, her determination to get his attention was unwavering as the server started to lead the trio toward a corner near the garden.

The older woman, her skin slightly darker and a more ruddy brown than the girl's turned to see what had captured the young one's attention. She then made a casual motion, touching her escort's shoulder. As he turned to look, it was clear that it was the two Starfleet officers that caught his attention.

Jean-Baptiste took another sip, his eyes narrowing--not hostile, simply curious. The girl was far too focused for the average teenager. Not the kind of idle interest that came from spotting uniforms. Her gaze hadn't meandered to Irene once. Just him. Steady and unblinking. As though she was trying to memorize his face in case she didn't want to forget it.

He leaned in slightly, voice low. "You clocking this, Irene?" he murmured, pushing all rank aside and nodding toward the patio. "Table by the garden. Teenager, dark braid, navy tunic." He didn't shift his posture. There was no way he was giving the family the satisfaction of his full attention.

Irene's back had been to the teenager when she had walked in with her apparent guardians, and she'd only caught a glimpse of the family as they were about to be seated, but as Jean-Baptiste leaned in to suggest she should pay attention, Irene made a point to notice, looking first with only her eyes. She noticed the couple shifting the teenager back toward the door to restaurant, which could potentially lead them toward the exit. Irene lost the view from her periphery and had to turn her head to see. She caught the girl looking over her shoulder at Dorsainvil as she was being guided through the doorway.

"It could be nothing," Irene stated, though she was not confident.

Jean-Baptiste didn't answer right away.

He watched as the trio rounded the corner toward the exit, the girl's head turning just enough to meet his gaze one final time. It wasn't curiosity he saw there. It wasn't awe or excitement or even recognition. It was a flare of something older. Something far more primal, like a flare gun behind her eyes.

"If we do something now and it all checks-out," he said as if walking a fine line, "we could find ourselves in hot water with local law enforcement."

Jean-Baptiste glanced back at the door. "Could be nothing," he echoed. Turning to meet Irene's eyes, he added, "But it never is."

~tbc~

RSS Feed