Something Like Trust, Part 1

Posted on Thu Oct 16th, 2025 @ 1:55am by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Lieutenant JG Fulvia

1,436 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Intelligence Offices, Deck 8
Timeline: MD007, 1220 Hours

The armoury doors shut behind him, and Jean-Baptiste found himself excusing his way through more Marines waiting for their weapons before he found the turbolift. He ducked past the last of them but he was already several minutes late. His boots made muffled sounds against the corridor carpeting, soft echoes in the empty stretch. Lieutenant Fulvia would be waiting, and he never wanted to be tardy for anything.

He didn't know her yet. Not personally. He only knew the name, and the connection: one of Lieutenant Xalanth's wives. There was an odd tension in that--familial connections in Starfleet could be as dangerous as a hull breach. But Xalanth seemed to make it all balance--work and family.

When he'd been asked by the Dragonian security chief to coordinate with the Intelligence chief, it was made clear that this was due to his experience. Experience. The word made his stomach tighten. Not because he lacked it--he had enough to fill several Starfleet dossiers--but because of the context. Excommunicated from Intelligence. Blacklisted by Admiral Spyvee. He was a man with a reputation in tatters despite Captain Johansen giving him a new lease on his career. He felt renewed since joining the Astrea, but anytime the word 'Intelligence' cropped-up, he felt that small pain in his gut.

Still. There was the work. There was the intelligence on the table, the security logs, the classified reports that needed eyes from both departments. That had to come first. The rest--the awkward personal politics and the falling-out--he'd handle another time.

He rounded the final corner and the Intelligence suites came into view. As he entered the room, he took note of a single blonde-haired woman sitting at a sectional sofa, a tray of food sitting in front of her on the coffee table.

"Lieutenant Fulvia?" he asked, his voice even but with the edge of someone who'd been on his feet and barking-out serial numbers and names for the past six hours.

"That's me." The Magna Roman said, lowering the pad, that she was reading slightly to let her piercing grey eyes poke over. "Take a seat, Jean it looks like you could use it," she said, gesturing with her head to the seats on the opposite side of the table before gesturing to the platter of bread, olives, cheese and fried mushrooms." Help yourself."

Jean-Baptiste let out a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. Her tone was not clipped or cold, and that already set the meeting on a better course than he had braced himself for.

He crossed the space between them, seeing the spread of food and lowering himself into the seat she'd indicated. The smell hit him and he realized he was actually famished. Warm oil, a tang of olives, a faint saltiness that reminded him a little of Strasbourg more than any cafeteria or restaurant ever had.

"I appreciate it," he said, setting his PADD down on the table. He reached for a piece of bread, tore it carefully in half, and popped it into his mouth.

Up close, Fulvia's eyes had the sharpness of someone more used to listening than talking. He felt them watching him in the pause that followed.

"So." The gladiatrix began before picking up an olive, which she popped into her mouth and swallowed. "Xalanth wants you to be the security liaison with me to ensure things go smoothly."

JB chewed thoughtfully, letting the bread roll against his tongue before swallowing. He leaned back on the sofa slightly, keeping his voice careful and light.

"Before we begin, maybe we should talk about something first," he said. "What do you know about me, Fulvia?"

The blond-haired Roman paused for a second with the same piercing look. One of knowing. "A great deal. I've read your file's including the one Admiral Spyvee wrote about you. Now I know Spyvee lies more easily than he breathes, so i will give you the choice. If you want, you can tell me what really happened on Bryn'kal III or we can act like you were never there. I will hold nothing against you."

Jean-Baptiste froze. The name hit him like a crossbow bolt, Bryn'kal Three falling out of Fulvia's mouth with the precision of a laser scalpel. The bread in his hand suddenly felt very heavy. For a moment, the room shrank--the sofa, the table with its neat spread of food--all of it dimmed behind the growing roar in his ears.

He swallowed but the bread had already turned to paste in his mouth. His pulse quickened, his breath seeming to catch as if the air in the Intelligence Suite had somehow become thick with smoke. He felt his stomach turn. The smell of olives and cheese that had made him hungry a minute ago now turned to something rancid in his nostrils.

His hand twitched, his fingers curling into his thigh until the nail bit flesh through the fabric. He tried steadying his breathing but his chest felt locked. He could still see it--the flashes of light striking the ground, the chemical fire blooming into some poisonous flower, faces screaming then gone in less than a blink.

JB had spent the better part of a year working through that memory. First, the ambush on the delegation that claimed the lives of several Starfleet officers from the Syracuse, not to mention the diplomats, and even the Bryn'kalian delegation. What followed had been some previously unseen levels of hostage-taking. The extremists had succeeded in capturing Ambassador Knežević, the Bryn'kalian Second Minister, and Lieutenant Pauvek--the Syracuse's security chief. But they had had no interest in negotiating for their release. It was pure theater: execute the three to show their desire to return to the Talarian Confederacy.

"I..." JB found himself searching for the words as he sat next to Fulvia. "Where is the nearest restroom?"

Fulvia eyes had stayed on him, not moving but giving him a simple look. One of understandings and brotherhood in joint pain. "Second door to the right." she said calmly.

He didn't remember standing up. He didn't remember crossing the suite in a hurry. And he certainly didn't remember the directions Fulvia had given him. Yet somehow, he was in the restroom, hunched over the toilet bowl, prepared for anything. His breathing had suddenly become quick--not quite hyperventilation--and sweat beads rolled down from his temples along his jawline.

The memories returned again. One of torpedoes being fired, another of the look the Executive Officer had given him upon learning of the civilian casualties. Another image flashed in his mind's eye: the people, the innocents caught in the calculus of orders. The precision, the collateral, the silence in its finality. And then came the commendation. And the lie.

Jean-Baptiste realized by now that he was not going to lose the contents of his stomach. He turned and pressed a fist against the counter and exhaled slowly, trying to will the panic into a more manageable rhythm. He couldn't undo what had happened. He couldn't undo the decision, the order, the aftermath. All he could do was feel it--whether he wanted to or not.

After a few long moment, he let his hands fall to his sides, straightened himself, and drew in one long slow breath. The nausea had eased enough for him to think in fragments again. He washed his hands, staring at the droplets sliding down his fingers, and looked hard at the reflection that met him in the mirror. He gently splashed some of the water across his face, careful not to wet his uniform.

More time passed and he then pushed the door open and returned to the Intelligence suite, careful to move slowly. As if to reassure both himself and Fulvia that he was more firmly anchored, and still Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil.

Fulvia said nothing; the look she gave him was an assurance that it wouldn't be brought up again. She got everything she needed to know. " So what do you need to know about me. " She asked calmly. " I take it you know about my relationship with my lord and husband?"

JB blinked at the word--lord. He raised an eyebrow but it wasn't mockery. It was just careful acknowledgment.

"I do," he said, "But before I ask, I need to give you as much honesty as I can."

He exhaled, letting the lingering tension in his chest soften a little more. He owed her the truth. Not the polished report, or the sanitized version that the brass might want repeated, but the reality he knew. The one he lived.


~TBC~

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