Time to Go to Work

Posted on Wed Apr 8th, 2026 @ 11:15am by Captain Zseeq & Lieutenant JG Chase Thompson & Ensign Roju & Lieutenant Commander Melanie D'BrooNi- Haistro & Lieutenant Siân Kirel & Lieutenant T'Mara Voight & Lieutenant Zhi'rev & Lieutenant JG Maran & Senior Chief Petty Officer Sethan MD

4,884 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: Life
Location: U.S.S. Saratoga
Timeline: 2401-07-05, 09:00

The heavy atmospheric seal of the Sickbay ward hissed, a sharp, clinical exhale that signaled the end of the siege. Captain Zseeq stood at the threshold, his posture a study in calculated grace, hands clasped firmly behind the small of his back. He did not step forward to offer a hand or a comforting word; such displays were for those who didn't carry the weight of three hundred lives on their shoulders.

His pale, violet-tinged eyes swept over the Away Team. He saw the tremor in the Science Officer’s hands and the haunting vacuity in the Chief Engineer’s gaze. To anyone else, they were survivors of a miraculous return. To Zseeq, they were a set of variables that had finally, stubbornly, aligned with the requirements of Federation security.

"The audit is closed," Zseeq announced, his voice a resonant baritone that filled the sterile void of the room. "The recursive mapping shows a ninety-nine point eight percent parity with your pre-mission synaptic baselines. In any other era, that zero point two percent would be a margin of error. In 2401, it is a leap of faith I am officially authorizing."

He turned his gaze toward the Vulcan, Sethan, who was still recovering from the metabolic drain of the meld. Zseeq’s expression was unreadable (a mask of Deltan stone) but for a brief second, his mind flashed to a historical text he had devoured during his time at the Academy: the journals of Surak. The spear in the sand, he thought. A boundary drawn between what we know and what we fear.

"Doctor Sethan has wagered his mental stability on the integrity of your 'essences,'" Zseeq continued, pacing a short, predatory line across the deck. "And the sensor logs of the Bluebird support the physical impossibility of your return. You are anomalies. You are biological contradictions. But more importantly, you are late for your shifts."

He stopped pacing and looked directly at his Chief Medical Officer, Dr. D’BrooNi. His gaze was heavy, clinical, and underscored by the quiet arrogance of a man who knew he was making a choice that would either define his career or end it.

"I am restoring your command codes, effective immediately," Zseeq stated. "But do not mistake my pragmatism for sentiment. You will be monitored. Every stray thought, every elevated heart rate, and every deviation from your established personalities will be flagged. If you are indeed machines wearing the skins of my friends, I suggest you perform your duties with such flawlessness that I never have a reason to look at the 'math' again."

He stepped aside, clearing the path to the exit. It was a silent command.

"The Saratoga is currently playing a game of chicken with three Kzinti freighters who believe our internal crisis makes us easy prey," he said, a sharp, dangerous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth; the look of a man who finally had his teeth back. "I grow tired of the 'B-Team's' hesitation. I want my senior staff on the bridge in ten minutes. If you truly are who you claim to be, prove it by out-thinking the Patriarchy."

As the officers filtered past him, offering nods of shell-shocked gratitude, Zseeq remained stationary. He didn't look at them as they left. His mind was already calculating the shield frequencies and tactical spreads needed to disperse the poachers.

Only when the Sickbay doors hissed shut, leaving him in the sudden, ringing silence of the ward, did Zseeq allow his shoulders to drop a fraction of a millimeter. He reached into his tunic and felt the cold, hard edges of a small data chip—a recording of his son’s last birthday. He hadn't watched it in months.

"Perfection," he whispered to the empty room, his voice devoid of its usual authority, sounding instead like the tired 35-year-old man behind the rank. "A heavy burden for a ghost."

He straightened his tunic, wiped the shadow of doubt from his expression, and strode toward the turbolift. The intellectual had finished his lecture; the Captain had a war to prevent.

Resentment ran through Maran's veins. Firstly for Sethan, how many people could justify mental intrusion as 'just following orders'. Seems the hypocritical oath can be tossed out the nearest airlock when the Captain orders it. Secondly for Zseeq, was it a tough decision or was it the easy and quickest option. He knew Command came it tough choices but personal invasion shouldn't be one.

The Cardassian helmsman simply nodded as he walked passed the Captain and made his way to the bridge. Two things were now clear to Maran, he'd lost confidence in his Captain's ability to command and he was requesting a transfer as soon as this mission was over.

Mel was none to impressed to be labelled by the captain "anomalies and biological contradictions" in one breathe and "friends but only if his math added up in another." The man had not exactly been very professional there in her view. Nor empathic. She wanted answers and had no intention of staying in this mechanical body. She wanted her own body back. It seemed she had to put her personal feelings, not to mention the harsher words a few of her hosts were having right now to one side and trust in this new captain that his words and behaviour were his way of dealing with this situation and not personal and that once this crisis with the Kzinti aliens was over he would indeed get them on the path of getting their bodies back and this mystery solved.

Kzinti from what she knew were an aggressive and carnivorous race. They had little respect for many other races, even less for females she had heard. Although as annoying as that might be perhaps it could be used as an advantage, she mused. Only one of D'BrooNi's hosts had had any interaction with them and that had ended badly. Their fangs were lets say very sharp.

As soon as the team was released, Zhi stepped forward and drew his stricken husband into his arms. "You shouldn't be here," he whispered as the man clung to him. He could easily sense the exhaustion and there was no denying the trembling he felt. He pulled back from the embrace and caressed his husband's cheek in a very open sign of affection. "Let the doctor check you out, but you shouldn't be on duty."

Sethan struggled to keep his composure, already having disobeyed the captain's order by simply being here. "I'm not," he promised, "and I will. The captain has ordered me off duty, and I will go home. I just had to be here. You're needed on the bridge, don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

Zhi studied Sethan's face as if to catch him in a lie. Then he kissed him gently. "I know you will, and we'll speak about this later, when I get home." He looked up at the chief medical officer. "Please take care of him?" He all but pleaded. "Send him home under escort if you have to. I will be on the bridge."

"Always," the Trill answered. "Lieutenant may I suggest you detour too and acquire a phaser. D'BrooNi unfortunately was around when there was an earlier incident with these Kzinti and it did not go well. If you end up face to face with one of those feline beings watch the fangs, watch the telepaths. You wouldn't think that of them but there are some and, we don't know much on the biology but, "she pulled out a PADD and pulled up some files, they have multiple hearts so if you have to aim here, here and here." she handed it to him.

"Of course." Zhi accepted the PADD with a minute nod. "I will make certain that the captain is made aware of this information. Should you remember more, forward it to my station and I'll inform the captain."

"Actually yes," Mel said. "Some of them have a rather nasty poison in their claws. Avoid any contact with those too. Sethan you and I, we will synthesise an antidote. Its not one normally stocked."

"Sethan should be resting," Zhi answered, acknowledging the additional information with a nod. "I will be on the bridge."

As the blonde Vulcan swept out of the medical facility, the dark haired one took a staggering step, grabbing at the nearest object for support. "I will do what I can," he said softly, briefly closing his eyes, "but I'm not sure how much help I am right now."

"I just need you to sit there and watch the screens," Mel said. "Nothing too taxing. Just shout up when each stage has concluded. But he is right. Its just I would rather have you with me as the two of us can do it quicker. My experiences with this race is things can turn ugly fast."

Sethan gave a slow nod as he inches to the desk, clearly struggling to keep to his feet. "It is good to have you back, I don't like being in charge."

The words "biological contradictions" hung in the air like a poisonous gas, and Roju found himself holding his breath as if he could keep the Captain’s clinical judgment from entering his lungs. He stood at the back of the group, his long, slender fingers twitching rhythmically against the fabric of his uniform trousers.

Zseeq’s speech was a masterpiece of intellectual coldness - a lecture delivered by a man who saw them not as officers, but as a set of equations that hadn't quite balanced out to zero. The mention of the 0.2% margin of error sent a fresh wave of pessimism through Roju’s system. To a Vorgon, whose culture valued the long, unbroken continuity of history, being told he was an "authorized leap of faith" felt like standing on a crumbling cliffside.

As the Captain stepped aside, Roju didn't offer a nod of gratitude. He couldn't. His gaze was fixed on the deck plates, tracking the subtle, microscopic scuffs in the floor wax. He felt a sudden, desperate urge to check his own pulse, not for health, but for proof - to see if the "elevated heart rate" Zseeq promised to monitor was a biological reality or just a simulation designed to appease the Saratoga’s sensors.

He followed the others out of Sickbay, his movements uncharacteristically stiff. The corridor felt too bright, the hum of the ship too loud. Ten minutes to prove they could out-think the Kzinti. Ten minutes to be flawless, or else the Captain would go back to the "math."

Roju’s path diverged from the bridge-bound senior staff at the first turbolift. He had to go to Engineering. He had to face the reality that while he had been a "contradiction" in a vacuum, a new Chief Engineer (a Cardassian named Kirel) had already claimed the space that used to be his.

"Flawlessness," Roju whispered to himself as the lift doors hissed shut. The word felt heavy, like a stone in his stomach. He reached into his tool kit, his fingers brushing against the illicit Gorn scanner he’d spent months tinkering with. It was an imperfect, messy piece of technology, vividly real in a way Zseeq would never understand.

As the lift descended toward Main Engineering, Roju didn't prepare a report or a tactical greeting. Instead, he mentally mapped the Jefferies Tubes. He knew the ship’s guts better than any sensor array. If the Captain wanted perfection, Roju would find it in the relays and the plasma injectors, where the logic was binary and the ghosts didn't have to answer for their own souls.

He straightened his tunic, his hands still trembling. He wasn't going back to work to be a hero. He was going back to hide in the only place where the 0.2% didn't matter.

Siân spent the past hour or two stuck in the corridor of the jefferies tube, engineering tool kit halfway open and a manifold scrubber on hand. Focused, she cursed silently in her Welsh accent, moving the tool along the opened eps relay conduit. Feeling flushed with warmth overflowing her light dermal scales, the hybrid human Cardassian stayed focused, keeping her breathing less and casual. This place, alone, felt like the only place she could live in without worrying too much about the outside world. Focused on the last of scouring from the conduit, she lined up her device and meticulously resumed cleaning the remainder of the plasma residue.

The turbolift doors hissed open, and the humid, thrumming air of Engineering hit Roju like a physical weight. He didn't step out immediately; he hovered in the threshold, his eyes darting across the deck. Everything looked the same, yet the geometry of the room felt hostile. The consoles were the same, but the authority behind them had shifted.

He didn't want to see the main floor. He didn't want to see the "B-team" looking at him with the pitying curiosity one might afford a resurrected pet.

Avoiding the central dais, Roju drifted toward the perimeter, his movements fluid and frantic, like a shadow trying to merge with the bulkhead. He slipped into the access alcove for Tube 12-Alpha, the metal of the hatch feeling blessedly cold against his sweating palms. He didn't need a PADD to tell him where the work was; he could hear the slight, high-pitched whine of a misaligned manifold scrubber echoing through the secondary EPS conduits. It was a small sound, but to Roju’s hyper-attuned ears, it was a scream.

He entered the tube, the cramped darkness closing around him like a familiar shroud. He crawled forward, the knees of his uniform scraping against the duranium, until he saw the light of a portable work-lamp around the next bend.

He froze.

Someone was already there. He heard the rhythmic scritch-scritch of a scrubber and a soft, melodic cursing in an accent that sounded like rolling hills and sharp rain. He caught the glit of light dermal scales—Cardassian.

This was her. Lieutenant Siân Kirel. Roju felt a wave of profound, suffocating pessimism. He had come here to hide in the guts of the ship, only to find the "New Reality" already cleaning the very conduits he considered his private sanctuary. He looked at his own hands - long, pale, and trembling. If he turned back now, he’d have to face the Bridge. If he stayed, he’d have to face the woman who had officially replaced his soul.

"I... I heard the alignment was off," Roju whispered, his voice cracking, barely audible over the hum of the plasma. He stayed in the shadows, three meters back from her position, huddled over his illicit Gorn scanner as if it were a holy relic. "The... the secondary relay. It’s supposed to be cleaned at a forty-five-degree angle against the flow, or the residue just... it just resettles in the lower injectors."

He swallowed hard, his throat tight. He didn't look at her face; he couldn't. He kept his eyes on the open EPS conduit, his mind already calculating the thermal expansion rates he’d memorized years ago.

"The Captain wants flawlessness," he added, his voice dropping to a nervous, bitter mumble. "But the ship... the ship just wants to breathe. You’re—you’re doing it too fast. It’s a delicate system. It doesn't like to be rushed."

He gripped his scanner tighter, waiting for her to tell him to leave, or worse, to ask him what it felt like to be a "biological contradiction."

Siân sighed, looking at him. Patiently, she worked the scouring while listening to him jabber on like an insect. Looking at him with an unreadable expression, she offered the device and replied, "You wanna do it?"

It was an offer, an attempt to help him feel at ease. It's his space too. She only occupied it for the moment.

Roju stared at the tool as if it were a live phaser. The 0.2% margin of error pulsed in his temples, a mechanical throb mocking his attempt at a steady breath.

"I..." he started, his voice a dry rasp. He didn't move at first, huddled into a defensive knot. "If the angle is off by a fraction, the plasma will cavitate in under six hours. Then the Captain... he’ll see the contradiction." With agonizing caution, Roju’s long, pale fingers closed around the tool. The grit of the carbon felt blessedly real. He shifted forward, his knees scraping the deck until he was uncomfortably close to Siân, his focus narrowing until his own soul disappeared into the rhythmic scouring.

"Forty-five degrees," he insisted, his voice a low, intense hum. "Against the flow. The Saratoga is the only one who doesn't care about who i am, as long as the power stays green." He scrubbed with obsessive precision, his hand still trembling. "Is the port-side thermal sink still sticking? It used to... it used to need a manual bypass. I haven't been here to listen to it."

Siân knelt on her knees, watching him work on it. Curious, she inclined her head, "Listening? So, who are you? I've seen you around. I don't believe we met as I just joined about a week ago."

"I’m Roju," he whispered, his voice nearly drowned out by the thrum of the EPS flow as he watched the repair. "I was... well now I'm the Deputy Chief." He paused, the tool trembling slightly in his grip. The pessimism that usually colored his thoughts felt heavier now, solidified by the literal metallic taste of the ship's atmosphere.

"The sink still sticks," he muttered, answering his own earlier question with a grim sort of satisfaction. "A rhythmic click every three-point-four seconds. If you listen past the secondary coolant pump, it sounds like a heartbeat. A malfunctioning one." He finally risked a sideways glance, his green eyes darting toward Siân’s Cardassian features before snapping back to the darkness of the tube. "The Captain says I’m an 'authorized leap of faith.' A copy. But the Saratoga... she doesn't know the difference. The hardware doesn't judge the source of the maintenance, only the precision of the angle." He held the scrubber out to her, his long fingers twitching. "You’re the new Chief, you should probably be the one to finish this."

"Kirel," she replied, accepting the tool. Turning it sideways, she inspected the scouring before pressing the tool against the bulkhead again. It had a few more lines left. She nodded, "I listen sometimes, to the ship. It helps me stay grounded too. Here. Finish up. I had other tasks to do. Let me know if you need anything."

After handing the tool back, she crouched, leaving her place and exiting the tube.

Roju watched her retreating form, the silhouette of her Cardassian ridges disappearing into the circular glow of the hatch. The silence she left behind was filled instantly by the heavy, industrial thrum of the EPS taps. To Roju, it sounded more like a conversation than noise.

He didn't finish the scouring immediately. Instead, he sat in the cramped darkness, his long fingers tracing the hull's cold interior. "Kirel," he whispered. She had been patient, avoiding the "math" or his status as a "contradiction." She had simply talked about the hardware.

He turned back to the conduit, his focus narrowing until the Kzinti threat and the 0.2% error margin collapsed into a single point of duranium. He angled the scrubber exactly forty-five degrees against the flow.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

"Three-point-four seconds," he muttered, closing his eyes. He heard it—the metallic click of the sticking thermal sink. To the Saratoga, time was just a measurement of wear and tear. He finished the scrub and sealed the panel with a clinical snap.

"Flawless," he breathed. He crawled deeper into the tube, moving toward the "heartbeat" where the contradictions didn't matter.

The deck plates of the Saratoga hummed with a frantic, high-pitched resonance that Chase felt in the soles of his boots. It was the sound of a ship pushing toward a confrontation it wasn't emotionally prepared for. He moved through the corridors with a predator’s economy of motion, sidestepping a frantic technician without breaking stride. His mind was a tactical overlay of the ship’s current state. He knew the Bridge was a powder keg led by a Captain who trusted math over men, and a senior staff who felt like ghosts in their own skin.

Then there was the matter of the new Chief: Lieutenant T’Mara Voight.

Chase didn't begrudge her the rank; he’d sparred with her in the gym twice. She was competent, logical, and followed the manual with a devotion that made his teeth ache. She was exactly what Zseeq wanted: a shield that didn't talk back. But in a dark corridor against a Kzinti telepath? Chase knew that manuals didn't stop fangs. He stopped at a wall-mounted interface, his fingers flying across the panel to check the latest long-range sensor sweeps, only to find his codes had already been relegated back to second banana status.

He checked the power cell on his phaser one last time. He had a bad feeling that the "B-team’s" hesitation, as Zseeq called it, wasn't the problem. The problem was the A-team. If those returned officers were even .02% compromised, the Kzinti would tear the Saratoga apart while the Captain was still checking his synaptic baselines. Chase may've fought for the testing to end, but this wasn't what he intended.

He reached the turbolift, but instead of heading to the Bridge or the Transporter Room, he punched in the coordinates for the Secondary Security Hub near the hangar decks. It was the "grime" of the ship, the place where the actual boarding parties would hit if the Kzinti got past the shields. As the lift doors closed, Chase closed his eyes, centering himself. He recalled the kata he’d practiced on the frozen wastes of Andoria: The Winter’s Silence. It was about being the rock that the tide breaks against.

Zseeq could have his math. Voight could have the Chief’s office. Chase Thompson would be the rock.

The lift doors hissed open. He stepped out, his hand resting near the weighted combat glove in his belt. He wasn't just a Security Officer anymore; he was the insurance policy for a Captain who had gambled the ship on a decimal point.

Voight stepped through the doors of the Security office. Her uniform was pristine-not even a thread was misthreaded. Her shiny black bob was fixed perfectly, too. She stood with confidence, though not arrogance-arrogance killed. Yourself or someone else, and that wasn't' something she was interested in. TMara regarded Chase with a long look, her face poker-straight. "Hello." Her tone held no emotion, though-unlike most Vulcans-she DID have them, and she did feel them. Her human half ensured that. At least her mother had been pragmatic enough to teach them to balance both worlds.

"Chase Thompson," she said, this time, her voice filled with recognition. She had taken the time to read up on her crew mates. "Nice to meet you," she said. "Let's get started." There it was; the way she TRIED to balance the human niceties with the Vulcan drive. It always ended up sounding disingenuous. She sighed, lightly and tried again. "I mean. Maybe some coffee first. But we do need to get a plan in place," she said. She moved quietly but with the grace of the Vulcan; towards the Replicator but no one would ever know she was there. That's part of what made her good at this-the element of surprise. No one expected an outwardly Vulcan security officer. No one expected a woman. Put them together? T'Mara banked on that surprise.

"Coffee is for when the shields are at 100% and the Kzinti are in a different sector, Lieutenant," Chase said as he leaned against the bulkhead, his posture a calculated mix of relaxation and readiness. He watched T’Mara move. She was smooth, Vulcan smooth, but he caught the slight, human hitch in her niceties, "Zseeq is up there playing chess with a computer that thinks we're all decimal points. I’m not interested in a 'plan' that comes out of a manual."

He stepped forward into the light, the bruising on his knuckles a stark contrast to her pristine uniform, "You’ve seen the reports on the away team. If the Kzinti telepaths hit this ship, they aren't going to look for logic. They’re going to look for the rot." The Lieutenant paused, a ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, "I’ve spent my life studying how different cultures kill each other, Chief. The Kzinti don't respect rank, and they don't respect math like the Captain. They respect the apex. If you want to be the Chief, you need to be the apex. Tell me: when the boarders hit the hangar deck and the 'A-team' freezes because their programming glitches, are you going to follow procedure, or are you going to let me do what I was passed over for?"

From her task, T'Mara could tell much about Chase just from the tone of his voice. She let him talk; she knew and understood what he was saying-there was nothing like being passed over when you're the assistant, ESPECIALLY in favor of a complete stranger. She finished with the replicator, and then turned.

"I don't like coffee much anyway," she said. She held up a cup of steaming green tea. "Our job is to save lives. and that includes those who freeze on the hangar deck." Her tone was blank again. "In the meantime, I suggest that you and I figure out the best way to avoid that happening in the meantime. The Kzinti are fierce warriors but they ARE beatable," she said. "Manuals exist for a reason, Lieutenant. However. I am also a practical, logical person. I know that the manual can't cover every situation. I would like to know what YOU think, based on your experience and your knowledge of the crew. They are still strangers to me."

She paused. "If we are going to work together, we need to understand each other. I will do my best to listen to you and hear you, and give you as much responsibility as you show me you're capable of. You WILL be a Chief someday. I am sure of it. Unfortunately, I do not know why such staffing choices were made, but perhaps they felt you need a bit more time. Now. We're wasting time with this back and forth. I want to keep the Kziniti away as long as possible, and if it's not possible, I want them to do as little damage as possible."

Chase’s jaw tightened at the "more time" comment. He stepped into her space, testing the Vulcan calm. "The Kzinti don't give you 'more time,' Chief. They hunt in prides."

He tapped a battered PADD, showing the ship’s "grime" layers. "They’ll bypass your perimeters via the thermal vents. My plan? We use the Engineering team as bait. The second the telepaths catch their 'static' and swarm, I want authorization to vent the secondary EPS conduits." He met her gaze, hard and steady. "It’s not in the manual, it risks the hardware, but it saves the crew. Prove you're practical and give me the override."

T'Mara remained quiet, listening. She nodded when he brought up the schematics. "So cut them off at jump," she said. She paused a moment to run the scenarios through her head. But it was a sound plan. Risky, of course, but so were the alternatives. She nodded again. "Let's do it." She said. "You have my permission to do what you need to do," she said. She would take the heat for anything that went wrong-as Chief, that was her job.

Chase’s expression didn't soften, but the tension in his shoulders shifted from combat-ready to operational. He didn't offer a thank you; in his world,results were the only currency. He took the PADD back, his thumb already hovering over the encryption key for the Deck 12 environmental controls.

"Smart choice, Chief," he said, his voice a low, lethal hum. "I’ll prep the atmospheric sealers. When the 'A-team' starts smelling like prey, the Kzinti won't be able to resist the vent crawl. I'll make sure they're halfway through the conduits before I drop the pressure." He turned toward the door, pausing only to look back over his shoulder at her pristine uniform and the steam rising from her tea, "Just stay off the internal comms once the shooting starts. Telepaths love a talker. I’ll signal you on the secondary frequency once the 'grime' is cleared."

He stepped back into the corridor, moving with the silent, predatory grace of a man who finally had his hands on the wheel.

"I'll report to the Bridge. Authorize whatever you need to. Use my override code if necessary," she said, stepping out into the Corridor with a watchful eye.

RSS Feed