Beneath the Subtext (Part 5)

Posted on Fri Jul 4th, 2025 @ 2:10am by Captain Remy Johansen & Commander Irene Seya & Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Crewman Emiliano Echevarria

1,842 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: How to See in the Dark
Location: Planetside Security Operations, Starfleet Complex, Barisa Prime
Timeline: 2015 Hours

After they watched the video of the attack, Irene voiced her observations. "It does not seem that they were attempting to rob you. They were also armed with disrupters, which they did not use - possibly to avoid a trace on the energy signature that it would have left behind. If they were not trying to steal from you, the next logical conclusion is that they were trying to stop you, or perhaps if the shopkeeper had not intervened we would have learned they had other intentions."

"What is the last thing you remember?" she asked.

Jean-Baptiste's fingers drifted up, brushing the line of his ribs through the thin fabric of his shirt. The spot was mostly healed--thanks to the medics--but the memory of each kick still resided somewhere deeper within him.

His gaze dropped to the edge of the console. He had to sort out the sequence of events inside his head--and it was still so raw and recent that he had to really focus.

"It's still coming back," he admitted in a low voice. "I remember... they came in fast. I didn't see the second one until it was too late. Thought maybe I'd get one of them down before--"

His thumb dragged absently along a line of bruised tissue near his collarbone that wasn't there anymore.

"One of them had a weapon," he went on, using careful words drawn from deep within the fog of his memory. "I think a disruptor. I heard the other one say--" He swallowed, jaw flexing once before he pushed on. "He said, 'Don't kill him. He's Starfleet.'"

He let loose a thin laugh that contained no humour.

"They... taunted me after. Told me I thought I was clever and that I should have had a weapon."

His eyes narrowed a little, seeing something that wasn't on the screen anymore.

"That's when the shopkeeper came out," he finished. "Dragged me inside. Saved my damned life."

"Whoever it was, at least one of them was intimidated by Starfleet jurisdiction. That gives us something, but not much," Irene stated. "Let's turn our attention to the girl, where did you last see them? Help us back track, perhaps we can follow them to somewhere useful."

"I lost them near a night market," he said. "Stall after stall, lights strung overhead. I remember a shop hut on the edge--trinkets hanging in the doorway. After that... gone."

Emiliano's fingers resumed their quiet work, his eyes darting over the network of camera feeds. Windows bloomed across the console, flickering frames that seemed to crawl backwards in time. He paused, squinted, then advanced slowly frame by frame.

"There," he murmured. A distant shot, grainy and crowded--JB moving just outside the frame. Ahead of him, the "family" slipped into a small shop. Cloth banners draped over the door fluttered in the calm evening breeze.

"Let's see if there's an angle from the alley behind," Emiliano muttered, already slicing through the data. Another feed lit up, though it was narrower and dirtier than the first.

Two shapes emerged first--JB's attackers. They moved smoothly and with patience. A few seconds later, the "mother" stepped out from the shop's back door. Her hand lifted, gesturing sharply. The attackers halted, then seemed to exchange a few silent words with her.

JB leaned closer, eyes catching every small detail.

"No audio," Emiliano reminded him.

The "family" turned west, darting quickly into a section of the map marked by dark gaps--no cameras and no surveillance. The attackers peeled off the opposite way, toward where they would intercept JB moments later.

Jean-Baptiste exhaled loudly through his nose. "She knew them," he said flatly. "They weren't just running. They knew they were being followed--this was planned."

Emiliano's mouth pressed into a thin line, but he didn't look away from screen.

After a long moment of silence, they both turned to look at the ranking officer to see what she was thinking.

"I think we should go to the scene where we last lost sight of them, while Crewman Echevarria tries to run a facial recognition through the feeds. We will see if they have any patterns of movement, or if a camera happens to pick them up later," the Commander suggested. "Though one more thing."

She pulled out the pendant that Jean-Baptiste had recovered. "Is there any chance that this will help us find her."

Emiliano straightened, catching the edge of Irene's words. "Commander--pardon. I'll need to use the forensics console one level up to run a deeper recognition sweep," he interjected, voice steady and quick. "Better processors up there. I'll ping you if I catch any leads, movement patterns, or flagged identities."

"Of course. Thank you for your help, Crewman." Irene nodded, acknowledging the Crewman's need to leave the station.

Emiliano's gaze wandered to JB--something akin to a small promise hidden in it--before slipping out, steps already brisk.

Jean-Baptiste reached out and gently removed the pendant from Irene's hand, turning it over in his palm. The chain pooled lightly across his fingers, catching the warm overhead lights like a gleaming blade edge. He studied it in silence, thumb drifting across its face.

"Maybe..." he started, hesitant. "Maybe we should show this to someone who knows about these things. Might be a family crest. Or it could just be some souvenir knockoff." He laughed low. "Or... who knows, maybe it tells us exactly where she's from. Could be the break we're looking for."

JB looked down at the pendant again. He closed his fingers around it, exhaling slowly. Then he stepped forward, stopping just shy of Commander Seya's shoulder.

"Commander," he said, voice lower than before. It nearly vanished under the hum of the nearby operations consoles. "Is this..." He hesitated, swallowing. The words crawled up from someplace deeper than the bruises. "Is this what I think it is? Are we looking at... trafficking?"

"I am not sure, but the girl does appear to be trying to send us a message." Irene caught JB's gaze. "There are signs that it could be, yes."

Jean-Baptiste stood still a moment longer, the pendant growing heavier in his closed fist.

"Trafficking... here." he echoed. His brow pulled-in sharply, disbelief sparked behind his dark eyes. "Barisa Prime... I knew the undercurrents ran deep, but this..."

He opened his hand again, studying the strange metallic shape as if it could suddenly morph and tell him everything. His jaw flexed. He looked up at Irene, the raw of edge of surprise smoothing into something that looked more pointed, as if closing in on resolve.

"What would they be moving people--or beings--through here for? Labour? Medical?"

"Labor yes, possibly," Irene agreed. "It's the through here part that we need to be concerned with. Barisa Prime is not their stopping point, and they will be looking to leave quickly if they think we are still looking for them."

"Go ahead and scan your pendant. See if the database has any matches, but then we need to get moving." She typed in a few commands and sat back in her chair, giving JB room to approach the terminal.

Jean-Baptiste stepped forward, the pendant dangling from his fingers. He set it down on a tiny raised dais built into the console surface--a simple, square platform no wider than his palm. It settled with a faint clink.

He keyed in a short string of commands, his fingers moving deftly over the console. Thin wisps of pale light drifted up from the dais, crawling over the pendant's edges, mapping every tiny groove and curve. Above it, the console screen began cycling rapidly through what looked like an endless lattice of insignias and cultural emblems.

Watching it for a long moment, he exhaled as if setting down a stone he'd been carrying somewhere behind his heart.

"Even in the middle of this mess... we've still got that conference breathing down our necks," he said. He shook his head lightly, eyes resting on the pendant as the database trawled on, line after line.

"We aren't the only ones working the conference security details," she reminded him. "And, if we get enough to work with we can pull in more back-up for this. If we can confirm it is trafficking, we should pull in more back-up --" Irene stopped talking as something on the screen caught her attention.

"The Ahai District of Romulus. That's a fairly rural area. Not as much attention in the Senate. Are you familiar with it?" She asked.

JB leaned in closer, eyes catching on the words as they resolved on the console's screen. His brow twitched, something like recognition seemingly slipped into the lines around his eyes.

"Ahai District," he echoed, his voice softening. "Yes. I know it. One of Romulus' main bread baskets, before the star went."

He straightened slightly, but his gaze remained firmly anchored on the screen.

"Gently rolling hills, farmsteads tucked in close to each other. They had vast irrigation systems, hardwood forests breaking up the fields. Whole families working the same land for a millenia."

His hand drifted back toward the pendant, though he didn't touch it again.

"They're a conservative people," he added after a moment. "Even by Romulan standards. Traditional. Tight-knit. They don't just let outsiders in... which means if she came from there, she didn't come willingly."

"She didn't look Romulan," Irene pointed out. "If they had her surgically altered, it's even more of a sign of something bigger."

"I'll report in that we're heading out. We'll have check-ins every couple of hours." Irene stood up and started to take a step, but stopped as if she suddenly remembered something. "I am not judging your fashion preferences, but your shirt is most noticeable, which is not ideal when attempting to be discreet. Might I suggest an overcoat, or a change of attire to a more subtle print."

Jean-Baptiste's eyes lifted slowly from the console, finding Irene's with a far-off glint of amusement under the fatigue.

"It wasn't a preference," he said, voice pitched low. He glanced down at the soft purple fabric, the white flower shapes catching the light like little reflections off water. His thumb skimmed a crease near the hem as though he were seeing it for the first time.

"I just didn't want to waste time fussing at the replicator," he added, a faint near-apologetic shrug on his shoulders. "We had work to do. I figured you'd appreciate that, ma'am."

A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, then he remembered he was addressing Commander Irene Seya--not a fellow junior officer, and the smile died a quick death. He rolled his weight back on his heels, nodding slightly.

"I'll change immediately, Commander." He said the last with deference, nodding once, and then making his way out of security operations and in the direction of the matter replicator.

The corners of Irene's lips turned up slightly in response to the Lieutenant, whether it was simple amusement or that she was growing fond of the young officer yet to be determined. "I'll see you shortly."

~tbc~

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