Subtext & Context (Part 7)

Posted on Sat Jul 12th, 2025 @ 7:34am by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Crewman Emiliano Echevarria & Commander Irene Seya
Edited on on Sat Jul 12th, 2025 @ 12:20pm

2,036 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: How to See in the Dark
Location: Planetside Security Operations, Starfleet Complex, Barisa Prime
Timeline: MD 02, 0500 - 1200 hours

Crewman Emiliano Echevarria sat backward on a console chair, arms draped over the top like he'd been dropped there and forgotten. His hair looked as if it had gone to battle--and lost--against a gravity well. He kept one eye on the monitor behind him, the other on Commander Irene Seya, as though she might suddenly change shape at any moment.

JB leaned against the wall, one foot braced up behind him, a ripe plum resting in his palm. He hadn't taken a bite yet. He looked at it occasionally, as though it might reveal something helpful about their current investigation if he simply gave it enough time. He stifled a yawn and rubbed his brow with a knuckle.

"We've confirmed the extraction point," he said. "Thoron interference covers the transporter." JB gestured to Emiliano, adding, "There were no secondary surface signatures detected either. And the evidence of gravitons tells us it was an off-planet transport. So they're gone. Likely to be in orbit."

Emiliano let out a half-laugh, half-cough. "Gone," he echoed, as though he were chewing glass. "Starbase went through their docking logs and performed two very thorough sensor sweeps in the immediate vicinity. Aside from a few gaps near the third moon, there's nothing to hang your hat on."

JB turned the plum slowly in his hand. His eyes found their way to Emiliano, then back to the fruit, as if he were weighing which of the two might lie to him first. He spoke finally, low and measured. "They didn't vanish. Nobody vanishes. Someone saw them--or wants us to think nobody did."

Emiliano shifted in his chair, turning his gaze to the one individual in the room who had yet to speak but carried the most authority. Neither JB nor Emiliano could tell what her diffidence signified. For all they knew, the Vulcan/Human hybrid was simply tired. Her expression remained neutral and her rigid posture appeared nearly imperial.

Irene had been taking in the information, processing. Their next move would need to be calculated carefully. One misstep, and they would be out of moves to make.

"We should get a couple of ships out to do a sweep. Just a couple, smaller ones, we don't want to raise any suspicions. I can have a couple of crews dispatched to subtly run tachyon nets through the area, focusing on the blind spots."

She turned to Crewman Echevarria, "Your skills have been an asset today. Once you've completed your report, you are dismissed for the evening. I will put in a request to have you check in with me when you report for shift tomorrow."

"Lieutenant Dorsainvil, now might be a proper time for you get some rest as well. There may not be much more for you to do tonight. We can let the flight crews do their job, and contact us with any further information."

JB nodded slowly, as if each tilt of his head carried the weight of the entire day. It had started with pre-security sweeps at the conference center--checks they hadn't even managed to finish, thanks to a wedding commandeering half the grounds. Then what should've been a simple, easy drink with Irene had spiraled into a suspected trafficking case and ended with a back-alley beat-down. Yes. Today had been that kind of day.


* * *

The comm came in just after 0400 hours. One of the flight crews had found a cloaked vessel hiding in one of the blind spots on the far side of the third moon. Starfleet was keeping its distance while they tried to determine if any other information could be gleaned from the vessel. She considered the time, and determined that it would be best for the Human officers to obtain more rest before returning to work, so she prepared a message with notifications turn off as to not disturb Lieutenant Dorsainvil.

JB slept as though he'd been dropped into a deep well--no sound, no edges, only the echo of old fears and half-formed eidolon. Somewhere in that darkness, the alley walls pressed close: boots pummeling against ribs, Spyvee's voice scraping over his ear like a rusted knife blade, and in sudden bright flashes, the curve of her mouth, the bright swing of her laugh, the warm slip of her hand against his. Jacqueline.

In the dream, he tried to reach her but kept finding empty air. Each time he lunged forward, he came up with nothing but bruised knuckles and a chest full of salt. He rolled in the sheets, producing small grunts.

When he startled awake, his arm was wrapped around the pillow, his chin pressed into it like it might vanish if he let go. He stayed there, eyes closed, breathing in the phantom scent--coconut, sea wind, something sweet that always clung to her hair. For a brief moment, he let himself imagine she was there, curled in the crook of him, her breath a soft rhythmus against his throat.

But reality crept in on silent, agile feet. He cracked one eye open to the half-lit room, plain and impersonal. Temporary quarters at the Federation's planetside operations complex on Barisa Prime. The sort of place designed to be sanitized and scrubbed-clean of every echo.

"Computer, he rasped, his voice still caught in sleep. "Illuminate room. Twenty percent."

A low glow pooled across the floor, catching the sharp lines of the lone chair, the small desk, and the discarded uniform trousers slumped across the backrest.

"Time," he said.

The female computer voice came in crisp and indifferent--the usual. [Zero five five zero hours.]

He let his head tip back onto the pillow, his chest rising and falling in sluggish, uneven arcs.

[There is one new message waiting,] the computer added.

He swallowed, throat dry. "Play message."

[Lieutenant Dorsainvil: It is believed we may have located the vessel responsible for the transport. Crews are working to obtain more information. At your convenience you may locate me in the security department operations division, second floor.]

He lay there a moment longer, the words stitching themselves in the coarse seams of his mind. Then he sat up, slow and careful, a hand pressed to his ribs where the alley fight still echoed in angry, purple blooms.

Thirty minutes later, JB stepped through the entrance to Security Operations, second floor. His stomach twisted once, a hard knot of acid and nerves--he wasn't sure if it was the aftershock of last night's back-alley donnybrook or the cold coil of anticipation tightening under his breastbone. Probably a bit of both.

Inside, the room hummed low--exactly what you might expect from an early-morning operations center. Commander Irene Seya stood angled forward, one palm braced against the console. Crewman Emiliano Echevarria hovered close, his eyes fixed on the screen's crawl of data. The fire-haired Lieutenant Commander Tucker shifted his weight from foot to foot, half-turned as if he were ready to spring forward a the drop of a hat.

JB paused just inside the threshold, taking them in. The small huddle seemed to be breathing in sync, like a single living organism.

He drew a shallow breath, rolled his shoulders back against morning's stiffness, and stepped forward--quiet as a footnote making its way to the bottom of a crowded page.

"Good morning, Lieutenant. I hope you are well-rested," Seya commented in the matter-of-fact way that many Vulcans were wont to do. "We are just getting started, but it appears as though the crew of the Raven has made some progress for us."

"Good morning, ma'am," JB replied, crossing to their huddle. "I hope it's all good news." He nodded a greeting to Emiliano and acknowledged Tucker's rank with a curt sir before returning his attention to Irene.

"The ship?"

Irene nodded. "If they disengage their cloaking device there is a team prepared to access their mainframe. We have traced a communication to the Jerache District. It's a largely residential area on the southern continent. A security team is being prepared to accompany us there."

JB's eyebrows lifted and a quick flicker of wary hope cut across his face.

Emiliano shook his head as though he'd just watched a pilot walk away from a shuttle crash unscathed. "Jerache is a hell of a place to go to ground."

"There will be a containment perimeter," Tucker added, piggybacking on Emiliano's words.

JB looked from Emiliano to Tucker, to Irene. "What are we waiting for?"

"At Oh seven hundred hours we'll convene with the security team so we can look at everyone's faces. We will be undercover and spread out, so we'll want to make sure to meet everyone on our team so that we know who is with us. We'll be given more covert styled communication devices as well," Irene looked over the young lieutenant. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes, ma'am," he lied, his words landing soft and practiced. His fingers found his side again, pressing lightly, as if steadying the fiction.

"Very well. The team should be convening shortly. We can make our way there now."

JB touched his side again, a small check-in with the bruise still humming down there like an old radio left on at low volume. He nodded once to Irene--not a big, sweeping move, but just enough to say he was present, awake, and all-in.

The doors closed behind them and he fell into step a pace behind her, rolling his shoulders as if he could shake-off whatever had been clinging to him these past few days.

Today, he wasn't the man who stayed at the edge of the room taking notes. Today, he'd be right in the current--no more studying the river from the bank.


* * *

A few hours later Irene and Jean-Baptiste were dressed in local attire and arriving in the Jerache District inside the city of Lorna by way of trolley. While the area was largely residential, several streets around the district's center consisted of an open market where vendors sold local produce and meats, as well as handcrafted goods, and various services. The trolley stop was on the far west corner of this market.

As the car pulled to a stop Irene turned to her companion. "Are you sure you are comfortable going into the field again? This is your last chance. You can monitor the progress from operations."

JB stood as the trolley rocked gently beneath them, one hand curling around the overhead rail. He looked at Irene, and for a moment his eyes were dark and private--like the silent veil that falls just before a confession.

"With respect, Commander," he said, voice low and sure, "I didn't come this far to watch from a console."

He shifted his weight, thumb grazing the faint bruise blooming under his ribs. The memory of that alley fight still buzzed beneath his skin like low-voltage current. But he held it close, used it.

"I need to be there," he added, softer now. "Right behind you when it breaks. Not for the file report. For me."

"After you, then." Irene gestured for JB to exit the trolley first.

The sky here had a dusty hue to it, sands from the outlying desert often making it into the atmosphere and creating a soft haze. The streets were busy, but not crowded as folks drifted out to meander among the colorful displays of the shops while they took their lunch breaks. Their arrival had been timed to give them this opportunity to disappear among the sea of anonymous faces.

JB stepped off the trolley, shoulder tensed from an old habit he hadn't bothered to ever name. The market fanned-out in front of them: a sprawl of low chatter, the slap of sandals, the sour-sweet smell of citrus and fried batter that cut right through the morning haze.

He adjusted his collar, thumb brushing the ache in his side like checking a loose tooth. No sign of nerves on his face--only that lean, deliberate watchfulness, the kind you picked up when you still half-expected a knife in a crowded square.

He caught Irene's eye and gave a short nod. Nothing theatrical. Just a plain, unadorned promise: I'm here. I'm coming with you.

Then they slipped into the crowd, two more shapes among the heat and barter.


~tbc~

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