Liminal Spaces

Posted on Fri Jun 20th, 2025 @ 12:43am by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil

1,338 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: Barisa Prime
Timeline: One Week into Layover

The shoreline curved like the inside of a conch shell, pale and near-perfect in its symmetry. Just beyond the thin line of native dunegrass, the sea stretched wide and drowsy under a washed-out morning sky. Barisa Prime's sun had yet to burn-off the night's leftover mist which clung low to the horizon, and the ocean itself--mineral-laden and impossibly still--glowed faintly lavender beneath it.

Jean-Baptiste stepped out of his sandals and onto the salt-stippled sand. The wind was mild. Not the sort that bit or howled, but just enough to lift the edges of his towel and press morning's coolness against his skin. He stood for a moment at the water's edge, letting the waves--if they could be called that--lap softly at his toes. The sea here had a density that reminded him of the Dead Sea on Earth, except it didn't feel ancient. It felt curated. Almost like someone had designed it to be flat and mirror-like.

He waded in slowly, the water thick and resistant, like a salve that clung to the skin. When it reached his chest, he pushed off and let himself float--arms spread, body buoyed by saline, eyes closed against the light. His body adjusted easily, muscle memory doing what it was told. His mind took longer.

He exhaled slowly, felt his ribs rise again before he even asked them to. Floating here, suspended and near-weightless, the timelines did not feel as heavy. He let the thoughts drift: the sudden shift in his career, the faint echo of Bryn'kal III that still hadn't faded completely, the quiet-but-constant feeling of being watched by people who never asked questions directly. Starfleet Intelligence had taught him to live with that. Or perhaps it had only taught him how to pretend it didn't matter.

No. He wouldn't let himself think about that right now.

Instead, he let his awareness pull inward. Breath, heart, lungs, water. The soft sob of the tide beneath him. A seabird overhead. The muffled hum of some distant shuttle, already awake and ferrying someone somewhere they likely didn't want to be.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. Barisa Prime had at least two moons, from what JB could see. One was still visible, a pale disk near the edge of the morning. The other one would be behind him and hidden.

That seemed appropriate.

He drifted a moment longer, then turned in the water and began to swim.

* * *

Location: Visiting Officers' Quarters, Federation Campus, Barisa Prime


The midday sun filtered through the wide window slats of Jean-Baptiste's quarters, spilling pale light over a stark desk and the remains of a half-eaten meal. Fruit, toasted seedbread, a soft wedge of some local cheese which he had not yet learned the name of. The room, like most Federation accommodations, was quiet to the point of sterility. A single cup of coffee sat cooling beside the comm unit. He had not touched it.

The terminal chimed twice, and he reached over to accept the incoming subspace call.

His mother's image resolved a few seconds later, caught in that commonplace Starfleet-grade compression--flattened by latency, but unmistakably his maman. Marie Judeline Toussaint St-Eloi. Seventy-three years old, a retired Federation Council attaché with coffee-coloured skin and greying-black hair neatly braided into a criss-cross pattern along her scalp.

Her face was framed by the gauzy curtains of her veranda in Bainet, light slanting through banana leaves and pink bougainvillea just beyond. Somewhere offscreen, he could hear the cadence of French-Creole, the lazy bark of a dog, and--JB imagined--the soft rush of surf.

"Jean-Ba," she said, with the faintest tilt of her head. Not a smile. But something nearing one.

"Maman," he replied. "Kijan ou ye??" ("How are you?")

"M ap boule," she said dryly. ("I'm fine.")

"You're home."

"Where else would I be?" she asked, brows arching. "I'm not longer flying between peace summits and delegation dinners. Bainet is slower, but it has much better manners."

He laughed under his breath. "And fewer diplomats."

She sniffed. "Diplomats were never the problem. It was the ones who thought they ought to be."

He smiled again, and she saw it, but said nothing about it.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, scanning the uniform he had just changed into. "Gold now," she said. "I suppose that means you don't have plans to return to Intelligence." She added quietly, "Or Earth."

"For now," JB said. "Tactical assignment. USS Astrea. I'm waiting for her to arrive in a couple of weeks."

There was a pause--just long enough to register that she was filing the name away, perhaps mentally cross-referencing it with captains or headlines.

"You look older," she said, her tone light. "Not aged. Just... heavier around the eyes. I hope whatever you left behind was worth it."

He looked down, his thumb brushing the edge of the desk. "It was necessary," he said simply.

Judeline tilted her head. "That's your father's answer. Stoic, tidy, and very unsatisfying."

"Would you rather I lie?"

"I'd rather you were closer to us."

He didn't argue. Instead, he gave a small nod.

"You still swimming?" she asked, pretending it was a question when they both knew it was more a habit check than anything else.

"Every morning."

That seemed to satisfy her. For a moment, the call was filled with the ambient sounds of Bainet: birdsong, wind through fronds, the echo of a neighbour's radio playing something soft and old. She sipped a drink that was offscreen and peered at him.

Her expression turned softer then, and he could see the moment where the tone shifted. She leaned forward a little. "Jean-Ba, what's troubling you?"

He hesitated. And she noticed.

"Is it loneliness?" she asked gently. "Or something heavier?"

He looked away, past the edge of the screen to where the wind was moving through the trees outside his window. "It's quiet here," he said. "Too quiet in some places, too crowded in others. I haven't quite found the rhythm of it yet."

She smiled faintly. "Ah. That intermediary space. Between what was and what's coming."

He glanced back to the screen. "You sound like one of your old dignitaries. Just like the ones you invited over for dinner when I was young."

"I listened more than they knew," she said. "You learn things when you hold the coats and serve the tea."

He smiled at that. "And what have you been learning these days?"

"Oh, nothing exciting. The garden is full of peppers and disgracefully fat tomatoes. I've been re-reading Sartre, but I think he's become more tolerable with age. And your sister's girls are starting to babble in stereo." She beamed. "I'm going to Paris again next month. I'll remind Angeline to send you more pictures."

"Tell her I'm waiting for one where they're both looking at the camera."

"They're babies, Jean-Ba. They'll look when they're good and ready."

A pause stretched between them, warm and familiar.

"You've been through a lot," she said finally. "Even if you can't say it out loud."

He nodded once. "I can't."

"I know. Just... be kind to yourself. You're allowed to be still. You don't always have to prove something."

He met her gaze, and for a moment the millions of kilometers between them felt weightless. He swallowed.

"I'll call you when I'm aboard my ship."

"You'd better," she said. "I'll assume you've been eaten by your own tactical reports if I don't hear from you."

"I'll write that into my will."

"Mwen sonje w," she said softly. ("I miss you.") "Je t'aime, mon fils." ("I love you, my son.")

"Je t'aime aussi, maman." ("I love you too, mama.")

The screen dimmed, and the connection ended with a soft chime. For a long moment afterward, he just sat there, the silence both familiar and a little too wide around the edges.


* * *

Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Assistant Chief Tactical Officer (on assignment)
USS Astrea

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