Desperate acts, desperate measures

Posted on Sat Mar 7th, 2026 @ 4:53pm by Rear Admiral Zseeq & Senior Chief Petty Officer Sethan MD

2,124 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Life
Location: Ready Room
Timeline: Following medical tests

Sethan has worked all night, pushing his exhaustion aside to get the captain the results he had ordered. The tests were invasive, but not as invasive as the mind melds had been. The young Vulcan shook his head as he downloaded the results of the tests onto a PADD, hoping that it would be enough to convince the captain.

He downed the strong coffee a nurse had left for him, changed into a fresh uniform and left the CMO's office. He spared the contained team a single glance before continuing his way to the bridge. When the turbo lift doors opened, he hesitated on the threshold; the last and only time he'd been up here had been to report in. Drawing a deep breath to center himself he took a step forward and allowed the doors to close behind him. "Captain," he announced, holding up the PADD as he stepped down to the command center. "We should discuss this in your office, sir."

Zseeq’s nod was a sharp, perfunctory snap of the chin, the gesture of a man who had already mapped out the next three moves before the first had even finished. He didn't look back at the Center Seat as he vacated it. His eyes were fixed on the Ops console, specifically on a young officer who hadn't yet been worn down by the cynicism of long-haul escort missions.

"Ensign Chambers," Zseeq’s voice cut through the ambient hum of the bridge, projected with that effortless, baritone authority that demanded immediate compliance. "The bridge is yours. Maintain our current distance from the pod’s trailing edge. If the Kzinti close to within five thousand kilometers, you are to notify me immediately. Do not wait for their 'intentions' to become clear; their intentions are biological, and I have no desire to be part of the food chain today."

He didn't wait for her verbal acknowledgment. He knew she would give it, and he knew she would be terrified - a state of mind Zseeq found useful for ensuring a junior officer didn't miss a single sensor pip.

Silently, the Deltan crossed the space between the Center Seat and the Ready Room. He moved with a measured, predatory grace, his boots striking the deck with a rhythmic precision that mirrored his internal drive for order. He didn't glance at the viewer or the massive, drifting Gormaganders that represented the stagnation of his current command. He was a man walking toward a crisis he intended to master.

As the pneumatic hiss of the Ready Room doors began to cycle open, he spared one final, calculating glance at Sethan, beckoning the Vulcan into his private sanctum with a flick of his fingers that was as much a summons as it was a challenge. The door closed behind them, sealing the bridge's uncertainty away and leaving only the cold, sharp reality of the command he was determined to protect.

The doors to the Ready Room hissed shut, sealing out the Bridge’s rhythmic chirps and the stifling mediocrity of their current mission. Zseeq did not sit. He paced the small length of the office, his movements as sharp and predatory as the Kzinti ships dogging his wake. Through the viewport, the massive Gormaganders drifted like slow, cumbersome obstacles to a real career.

He turned then, his 6'0" frame cutting a sharp silhouette as he moved to dominate the small room. His dark eyes narrowed, searching Sethan’s face for any hint of Vulcan uncertainty. He remembered their last exchange in Sickbay, the exhausting appeals to "essence" and the romantic notions of a husband’s intuition.

"You look like a man who has spent the night staring into the abyss," Zseeq noted, his tone shifting into the clipped, authoritative register of a commander whose patience had been bankrupted light-years ago. He stepped forward, invading Sethan’s personal space to take the PADD. His grip was tight, his knuckles pale against his Deltan bronze skin. "In Sickbay, I tolerated your talk of 'souls' because I required a baseline. But here, with the Kzinti sharpening their claws on my shields, I require a Captain’s truth."

He scanned the data with the predatory speed of a man looking for a tactical weakness, his thumb tapping sharply against the glass.

"I have no interest in 'potential' duplicates, Doctor. I am playing shepherd to a pod of space-borne oil tankers while being asked to trust a Senior Staff that reads like a corrupted data core. I will not have my Bridge compromised by 'essences' while predators circle us." He leaned in, his gaze boring into Sethan’s with cold precision.

"Tell me you found the 'firewall' I asked for. Tell me you found the mechanical seam where the mimic ends and my officers begin. Does this data prove they are the originals, or does it give me the legal authority to keep them in that cage until we reach a Starbase? Speak plainly, Sethan. Give me a fact I can use as a weapon."

"Data is open to interpretation," Sethan answered, feeling properly intimidated as the captain invaded his personal space and pulled the PADD from his grasp even before he had an opportunity to offer it. "What I witnessed for myself is not open to interpretation." He feared that the captain would reject his findings, that he would find the tiniest sliver of information necessary to keep them contained or worse: destroy them.

As the tall captain still stood within arm's reach, Sethan made a split-second decision. With his right hand he grabbed the man's arm in a vice grip, while his left hand spread out across the contact points on his face. Before Zseeq had any chance to respond, Sethan's mind already connected to his, flooding him with the sensations he had experienced without breaking his promise to uphold the patient's privacy.

The violation was instantaneous.

For a Deltan, whose species is defined by a heightened, disciplined sensory awareness and the strict philosophical control of intimacy, Sethan’s touch was not merely a breach of protocol—it was a psychological flashbang. Zseeq’s first instinct was biological: a surge of adrenaline, his muscles coiling to wrench away from the Vulcan’s grip, but before he could throw Sethan across the Ready Room desk, the meld took hold.

Zseeq didn't see data points, he felt the viscera of the night. He felt the cold, clinical ache in Sethan’s joints, the jagged edge of the caffeine-fueled focus, and then the truth. It wasn't a "fact" in the way a sensor log is a fact; it was the undeniable, resonant frequency of a soul. He experienced the subtle, unmistakable "texture" of his officers that no mimic, no matter how perfect the cellular replication, could possibly forge. It was the difference between a masterwork painting and a high-resolution scan. The Captain’s breath hitched, a sharp, ragged sound in the quiet of the office. His eyes, usually so calculating and distant, went wide and unfocused, reflecting the flickering psychic images.

When Sethan finally released him, Zseeq stumbled back, his spine hitting the cold transparency of the viewport. He stayed there for a long moment, the silhouette of a drifting Gormagander framing his head like a dark halo. His chest heaved. The "predatory grace" was gone, replaced by the raw, trembling vulnerability of a man who had just been forced to look into a mirror he didn't know existed.

"You..." Zseeq’s voice was a low, dangerous rasp, the baritone cracked at the edges. He straightened his tunic with hands that were not entirely steady, his fingers fumbling momentarily with the fabric, a rare lapse in his cultivated perfection. He looked at Sethan, not as a subordinate, but as a man who had just committed a profound trespass. He turned away, staring out at the Kzinti ships in the distance, his reflection in the glass looking ghostly and pale. The silence stretched, heavy with the weight of the Deltan’s offended sensibilities and the undeniable truth now lodged in his brain.

"Historical precedent suggests that those who skip the trial to reach the verdict often find the verdict tainted," Zseeq said, his voice regaining its intellectual armor, though the tremor remained. He turned back, his gaze hard, shielding the profound shakiness underneath. "But I cannot un-know what you have forced me to see. It is... inefficient to ignore the evidence of my own nervous system, even if it was learned through a violation."

He snatched the PADD from where it had fallen on his desk, his movements sharp again, though the "weapon" he wanted now felt like a lead weight. "The 'mechanical seam' doesn't exist, does it? Because the original is the seam." He exhaled, a long, slow release of tension. "Fine, Doctor, I will authorize their release from the holding cells, despite you using the tactics of a grand inquisitor. But listen well, if a single blink is out of place in their next duty shift, I will hold your 'essence' personally responsible, Sethan."

He stepped toward his desk, tapping a command into the terminal to override the security lockdown on the containment ward.

Sethan had collapsed upon the release and pushed himself up with trembling arms. It was as if all strength had drained from him, but the relief that washed over him at the verdict was very visible on his exhausted features. He held on to the nearby desk for support as he got to unsteady feet, meeting the captain's eyes as the man spoke. "It's them," he said, his voice as unsteady as he felt, well aware of the crime he had just committed to prove what he'd been ordered to prove. "I accept the consequences," he added, looking away this time. When he looked back, it was with the eyes of a physician despite his current condition. "Are you alright sir?"

Zseeq’s jaw tightened, the muscles ticking beneath his bronze skin. The question felt like a secondary trespass. To a Deltan, being "alright" was a matter of internal equilibrium, a state of being that was usually guarded with the same intensity as a starship’s warp core. Sethan had reached into that core and rearranged the fuel rods.

"I am... functional," Zseeq replied, the word clipped and devoid of its usual melodic resonance. He didn't look at the Vulcan. Instead, he stared at his own hands, watching the slight tremor in his fingers until he forced them into a tight, disciplined fist. "But do not mistake the utility of your actions for permission, Sethan. You have achieved a tactical objective by sacrificing a strategic principle. We are a Starfleet crew, not a collection of psychic impulses to be harvested at your convenience." He walked around his desk, the distance between them feeling like a newly forged border. The PADD lay there, the data on it now redundant, rendered obsolete by the raw, shimmering truth currently echoing in the back of Zseeq's mind. He could still feel the phantom 'texture' of his officers' identities: the specific warmth of a husband, the sharp, disciplined edge of a tactical lead. It was an invasive, beautiful, and terrifying clarity.

"Go to your quarters, Doctor," Zseeq ordered, though the edge of his command was blunted by a lingering exhaustion that mirrored Sethan's. "That isn't a suggestion. You have pushed your biology to the breaking point, and I will not have a doctor collapsing in the corridor. I have authorized the release. Security will escort the team back to their respective departments for a full debriefing under my supervision." He finally looked up, his dark eyes meeting Sethan's. The cold, predatory distance was slowly returning, but there was a new, flicking shadow of recognition there; a silent acknowledgment that the Vulcan had been willing to burn his own career to save his crew.

"I will deal with the 'consequences' once the Kzinti are no longer using us for target practice. Until then, you are off-duty. Sleep, Sethan. That is a direct order. If I see you in Sickbay before the next chronometer cycle, I’ll personally bar the doors." He turned back to his terminal, the blue light of the screen reflecting off his bald head, casting his features into sharp, unforgiving relief. "Dismissed."

"Yes sir," really was the only acceptable answer in Sethan's mind and the words were uttered at a bare whisper. He gritted his teeth as he took an unsteady step towards the door, fully intending to use the transporter once he had cleared the bridge. He no longer had the energy to walk, feeling utterly drained.

As soon as he was able he requested a site to site transport and collapsed on top of his bed, still fully dressed.

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