99.8 Percent Known

Posted on Sun Apr 26th, 2026 @ 9:59pm by Captain Zseeq & Lieutenant T'Mara Voight

2,056 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Life
Location: Ready Room, U.S.S. Saratoga
Timeline: 2401-07-05, 11:15

The Ready Room was a sanctuary of calculated silence, the only sound the low, rhythmic thrum of the Saratoga’s engines echoing through the room. Zseeq stood by the large, curved windows of the lower sitting area, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched the Gormagander pod fade into the distance. The bioluminescent trail of the great space-borne whales mirrored the faint, flickering data on his PADD - a fading pulse of a crisis averted, yet a lingering shadow of a crew transformed.

He had been in the room for exactly three minutes, enough time to let the Bridge’s tension settle and for his own internal rhythm to sync with the ship’s master clock. He didn't turn when the door hissed open, acknowledging the arrival of his Security Chief with only a slight tightening of his shoulders.

"Chief Voight," Zseeq said, his baritone reflecting off the darkened glass. "Sit. Somewhere between our mission and the 'intent' of my Science Officer, the equilibrium of this ship has shifted. I want your unvarnished assessment of the Bridge's performance."

He finally turned, moving with a predator’s grace from the window to the elevated platform where his desk sat. He didn't sit; he leaned against the edge of the sleek, curved surface, his frame silhouetted against the starlight. On the desk, the holographic projector hummed to life, displaying a three-dimensional replay of the resonance pulse and the unmistakable, deliberate graze that had slagged the Kzinti grappler ports.

"The B-Team is shaken," Zseeq continued, his dark eyes pinning Voight with clinical intensity, "they saw the Kzinti harpoons, and then they saw the senior staff take their stations back with a coldness that borders on the mechanical. And then, there is the matter of Lieutenant Zhi’rev’s 'accident.'"

He tapped a command into the desk interface, freezing the hologram at the moment of impact. The molten debris of the Kzinti ship hung in the air between them like a localized nebula. "The margin of error, Chief," Zseeq said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous vibrato, "Tell me: when you look at your colleagues now, do you see Starfleet officers exercising necessary force, or do you see a recursion? Something mimicking duty to hide a much more dangerous autonomy?"

He waited, the silence of the Ready Room heavy and silent, his internal clock counting the seconds until she offered her report.

T'Mara took a quiet inhale. What he was asking was unexpected. Still. She had been around just long enough to catch what he meant. She thought a moment, trying to cobble together a response full of Vulcan logic with her Human caring.

"Permission to speak freely?....My mother's people believe that margins of error are dangerous; that's when lives are lost. My father's people think with their hearts," she started. "So. I view the others as a group torn between their duty AND their humanity. A challenge I understand myself," she said. "That said, there were numerous failures and I think we can ALL do better. For what it's worth, there are some places out here that even a Klingon wouldn't go to, and the Kzinti are a formidable foe. I would be hard-pressed to put myself in danger if I weren't the Chief of Security," she said honestly. "What I mean is...I see them as neither Starfleet officers doing their jobs, nor as people who are mindless hunters. What I see is a failure of leadership from the top down. For whatever reason, your crew didn't trust you enough with their lives. I did, but I know I can take care of myself out there. They aren't taught that, unless they''ve taken specialized battle training. I don't think it's a YOU thing, per se, just a culmination of all of the events up to now. My assistant doesn't trust ME, and while I intend to remediate that, I know that if I asked him to do what you asked of this crew today, he'd toss me out of Airlock." She had little doubt about that, and she'd only just met the man that morning.

"A failure of leadership," Zseeq repeated with a detached, clinical curiosity as he descended to the lower sitting area, his silhouette framed by the stars and the fading glow of the Gormagander. "An honest assessment. You speak of trust as a biological necessity, but trust is a luxury of the known. The 'ghosts' who reclaimed their stations today are 99.8% known; it is the missing fraction that breeds the hesitation you witnessed."

He gestured to the frozen hologram of the shattered Kzinti ship, "Zhi’rev claims his 'accident' was a calculated deception. If I believe him, I acknowledge a subordinate comfortable with lying to his Captain. If I do not, I acknowledge a synthetic construct experiencing a malfunction of aggression. Both are variables I cannot yet solve." He turned back to Voight, his dark eyes narrowing, "I demanded flawlessness to outrun that 0.2% margin and it seems I have instead created a vacuum where their humanity used to be."

T'Mara nodded once.

"Perhaps there is no solution," she said. "I am just a security officer, so that's a question for Ops or Engineering. But if these...ghosts...are exhibiting signs of sentience, it would make sense that they would also develop good traits," she noted. "For no being is all one thing." She paused a beat. "And if it's indeed the fact that your Subordinate lied, you must ask yourself why. Is it from a place of malice? Is it from a place of worry? Once you know that, you will know what to do."

"What happened to the crew before I arrived?" She asked. "I've noticed they are not....right. A sort of...how do you say?' Uncanny Valley quality to them, I noted."

Zseeq’s eyes remained fixed on the hologram, the flickering light of the Kzinti destruction dancing across his unreadable features. The mention of the "Uncanny Valley" struck a chord that resonated deep within his Deltan sensibilities - a sharp, dissonant note in what should have been a perfect restoration.

"They are the survivors of the Biranu Conference," Zseeq said, his voice dropping to a low, melodic thrum. "Fifteen days ago, the away team disappeared while returning to the ship. When we finally found them, we didn't find the officers we lost. We found bio-mechanical replicas. Every cell was a reconstruction; every memory, a recursive duplicate." He stepped toward the curved window, his reflection ghostly against the blackness of space, "They returned with 99.8% parity to their original baselines. Yet, as you’ve observed, they are essentially synthetic mirrors of the people they replaced. They perform their duties with a precision that borders on the unsettling because they are navigating the wreckage of their own identities—trying to prove they are 'real' through a perfection that the rest of the ship finds terrifying."

He turned back to Voight, his expression sharpening, "Zhi’rev’s lie, or his malfunction, is the first time that synthetic perfection has cracked. If his intent was to protect the mission through deception, he is mimicking humanity too well. If it was a surge of simulated aggression, he is a weapon I have allowed back onto my Bridge. I didn't just lose a crew at Biranu, Chief. I gained a paradox."

She nodded once. "So...what are you going to do about it?" She asked. "As far as I can tell, you have two options-carry on as you are, or...we change it. I can read through the database. Contact the other Starfleet personnel who are also bioengineered beings. Dr. Julian Bashir is still alive," she said. "I am unsure if his parents still are. There's also the Loonkeirians. You remember that they invented the universal atmospheric element compensator?"

She offered solutions. It was up to him to counter her, or not. Or whatever.

"Dr. Bashir is a masterpiece of genetics, Chief, but he began as a child of Earth. My crew began as a data stream," Zseeq replied, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. He walked back to his desk, the holographic projection of the Kzinti wreckage still flickering, casting long, rhythmic shadows across the room. "And as for the Loonkeirians, they solve for atmospheres. I am solving for a soul, or the lack thereof." He tapped a key, and the hologram vanished, plunging the Ready Room into a more natural, starlit gloom. He stood behind the desk, his hands resting on the cool, metallic surface.

"You asked what I am going to do," he said, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a sudden, sharp clarity. "I am going to keep them close. I will not seek counsel from the outside, not yet at least. I will allow the 'ghosts' to remain at their posts, but the B-Team will stay close by. As for Zhi’rev," Zseeq paused, his internal clock marking the silence, "I will not reprimand him for the lie. If he is developing the capacity for deception, he is developing a survival instinct. I want to see where that instinct leads him, but I want you, Chief, to be my shadow on this ship. Monitor the internal comms, the sub-level power draws, and the 'accidental' calibrations. If their margin begins to grow - if their autonomy turns from mission-preservation to self-preservation - you are to report it to me instantly. No logs. No formal reports. Just you and I."

"You say they didn't trust me with their lives and perhaps they were right," he straightened, the predator’s grace returning to his posture. "I'm not asking for their trust anymore, Chief, I'm asking for their function and I'm asking for your eyes." He moved from behind the desk, signaling the end of the briefing, "If there is nothing else?"

T'Mara sat, silent. Listening.

"You want me to spy on the crew and report back to you?" She asked, her face stony but her tone slightly incredulous. "Sir...I need to foster trust between myself and my team. What you are asking me to do is...going to affect that." She stopped a moment and then thought for a moment. "But...if you can guarantee it's for the safety of everyone...I suppose it's a logical next step." She sighed. She hated the ask but she did understand him.

Zseeq didn't respond immediately. He watched her back as she moved toward the door, the starlight catching the sharp lines of her uniform. The word "spy" hung in the air, a blunt, human label for what he considered a clinical necessity. It was an ugly word for an ugly situation, but he didn't move to soften it.

"Trust is a luxury we burned at Biranu, Chief," he said, his voice a low, steady thrum that reached her just as the doors began to sense her presence. "I am not asking you to like the task. I am asking you to be the fail-safe. If I am wrong about them, your 'fostered trust' won't matter when the ship is no longer ours." He turned back to the window, the silhouette of his head reflected in the glass. "Ensure your team is ready for the second half of the migration. The Kzinti may be licking their wounds, but they have long memories."

He didn't wait for her to acknowledge the final command. The Ready Room relapsed into its sanctuary of calculated silence, leaving Zseeq alone with the stars and the crushing weight of the variables he could not yet solve. "Was there something else?" He asked from his place at the window.

She stood. "Nothing else, sir," she said, as she made for the door.

"Computer," he spoke to the empty room, his voice barely a whisper. "Begin a recursive analysis of the bridge sensor logs, specifically focusing on the Tactical-Science intermix during the last engagement. Cross-reference Lieutenant Zhi'rev's manual overrides against the standard Vulcan baseline for emergency maneuvers."

"Analysis in progress," the computer replied.

Zseeq didn't sit. He remained standing, a predator in a room of shadows, waiting for the data to tell him whether he was leading a crew or presiding over a masquerade. The 0.2% remained a void in his mind, and until it was filled, he would be the only one on the Saratoga who was truly awake.

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