When junior Science Officer T’Kaal accepted the incoming subspace communication, the ID coding suggested she was being called by her superior, Lieutenant Sootrah Yuulik.  T’Kaal had spent much of the day leaving communiques for Yuulik, all of them to no avail.  And yet when a helmeted face appeared on her desktop LCARS display, T’Kaal’s first impression was that she was being besieged by a Breen soldier.  It was a snail-shaped tactical helmet that fully encased Yuulik’s head; instead of a visor panel in the front, all that looked at T’Kaal were three LCARS panels, displaying sensor logs and communication waveforms.

“What could you possibly want?” Yuulik asked from the LCARS display protruding from T’Kaal’s desk.  The vitriol in Yuulik’s voice was digitally distorted by communicating through the helmet’s comm system.

Speaking evenly, T’Kaal said, “Lieutenant, it is my duty to report to you that Captain Taes has been relieved of duty and Science Chief Flavia has–“

Yuulik waved a hand at the screen dismissively.  Her scoff sounded all the more peculiar, being transmitted through the helmet.

“I know all that!” Yuulik said.  “Gossip travels faster than light.“

Changing strategies, T’Kaal evaluated she could only make progress in her inquiries if she framed it through a topic that was of interest to Yuulik.  T’Kaal sat up straighter in her chair.

“Is the helmet working, lieutenant?” T’Kaal asked, gesturing to Yuulik on the display.  “Have the cybernetics team been successful in constructing a mechanical paracortex to approximate telepathy?”

Yuulik’s typical mad-on was replaced with a deadpan timbre.  “Has your brain exploded yet?“

T’Kaal inclined her chin in mild confusion.  “No,” she said, “It has not.”

“Then it’s not working,” Yuulik said.  “I’m not telepathic.“

T’Kaal didn’t hesitate.  “A lie?” she asked.  “Have you not ordered junior officers to genetically augment your brain until you become capable of telepathy?”

Yuulik unlocked the failed paracortex helmet and yanked it off her head.  She threw it across the compartment and T’Kaal could hear it clattering across the deck.  Yuulik’s wide-set eyes were aflame with indignation; that was a facial expression T’Kaal had witnessed a hundred times.

“Are you spying on me, ensign?” Yuulik asked.

“Yes,” T’Kaal said simply.  “My peers on the stardrive section have confided in me.  They have expressed genuine concern for you, Lieutenant Yuulik.  I am told you have not washed your hair or changed your uniform in days.”

At that, Yuulik dropped her gaze to her own uniform.  Beneath the teal shoulder panels, T’Kaal could plainly see a couple of suspicious stains on the black fabric near Yuulik’s combadge.

“You have begun yelling at yourself instead of yelling at them,” T’Kaal said.  “That’s not like you.  From here, I can see you’re sitting in the epigenetic laboratory.”

“Exactly,” Yuulik said, almost as if she were agreeing with T’Kaal, but experience had taught T’Kaal that this was a trick.  “We’ve prepared an epigenetic therapy using equipment provided to us by Starfleet.  I’m not talking about altering my DNA sequence.  I’m not breaking any Federation laws.  It’s just a teeny, tiny compressed metamorphosis.  Through a very small change in gene expression, I can reshape the function of one of my brain lobes to behave as if it were a Betazoid paracortex.“

“Lieutenant, you are misrepresenting the risk to your health,” T’Kaal said. She maintained a flat intonation, despite her inflammatory accusation.  “Epigenetic therapy is approved for use in little more than cosmetic alterations in the course of Starfleet duty.  The magnitude of change you’re proposing in an Arcadian brain structure…”

Trailing off, T’Kaal leaned back in her chair.  Her eyes fluttered for a moment as she approximated the calculations in her head.  Yuulik didn’t interrupt her.  That was concerning in and of itself.

T’Kaal concluded, “There is a seventy-four percent chance you’ll lose the ability for speech and sight to express your brain function as telepathy.”

“It’s only temporary,” Yuulik insisted.

“The purpose of Federation laws against genetic engineering are not simply about technicalities,” T’Kaal said, reflecting on a philosophy that meant as much to her as the logical teachings of Surak.  “The intention is to protect us from ourselves, protect us from the states of mind that led to the atrocities of the Augment warlords.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Yuulik asked indignantly.  “T’Kaal, I grew up on Arcadia.  We don’t have murderers or terrorists on Arcadia.  When my parents wanted to scare me, they told me bedtime stories about genetic engineers and Augments.  Like everyone in the Federation, I’ve been raised to believe genetic engineering is a disgusting abomination.  Don’t worry your logical head, I disgust myself.  I’ve vomited twice today already.”

Although T’Kaal maintained a lack of emotional modulation in her voice, she did speak slightly louder when she said, “Lieutenant, you have not considered the consequences.  Epigenetics is not your specialty.  You are entrusting your life to the handiwork of recent graduates from Starfleet Academy.  Changing brain functions should only be the work of the Stanford Morehouse project or the Daystrom Institute.”

“Their theories are sound and the ends are right,” Yuulik said, leaning closer to her LCARS screen.  “The blood dilithium is tapped into trans-dimensional beings beyond our comprehension and they have a plan!  Somewhere beneath your Vulcan facade, you must have seen it in Nune’s eyes.  Didn’t you see it?  How can you know higher powers exist, how can you know they exist for a fact, and then permit them to hoard their mysteries to themselves?“

T’Kaal shook her head.  Her voice took on a brittle quality.  “There are no higher powers, Sootrah.  There are only dead telepaths.  The memory engrams of telepathic Brenari captives, murdered by the Devore, have been transmuted into blood dilithium.  Have you not read the reports from USS Discovery?  Commander Rozar made first contact with them directly using their construction of Lieutenant Nune’s subspace trumpet.”

“Rozar is a liar!” Yuulik screamed at T’Kaal.  “She’s a telepath, you idiot!  We can’t trust the telepaths.  Not any of them.  They’ve been listening to the blood dilithium for too long now.  They’ve been indoctrinated already.  I’m not really a telepath.  I won’t be susceptible like they are.“

T’Kaal said, “There is no logic in your words.  If the epigenetic therapy is successful, you will become telepathic and become susceptible to the cries of the Brenari.  If the epigenetic therapy fails, you will suffer brain damage.”

“Clearly,” Yuulik insisted, “you’ve already been fooled by the telepaths’ conspiracy.  If you were open-minded enough to consider all of the facts, you would see the logic in what I’m doing.“

“How dare you say that to me?” T’Kaal spat the words out as if they were acid.  She lost her emotional control in a single moment.  “I told you, Sootrah!  When we were camping on Kunhri, I told you about my parents. I only ever told you!  And now?  You sound just like the specialists my parents sent me to; you sound just like their logic extremist conversion therapy.”

Yuulik shook her head, glaring at T’Kaal with half-lidded eyes.  

“Now you’re just trying to hurt me,” Yuulik said softly, “comparing me to those monsters.“

Reigning her emotional state in tightly, T’Kaal affected a formal timbre when she said, “I hold no wish to hurt you.  I want to protect you, lieutenant.  If you won’t help yourself, I will immediately notify Flavia and Commander Elbon of your attempts at self-harm.”

“You nasty offal,” Yuulik remarked sadly.  “You leave me no choice.  The epigenetic therapy isn’t exactly where I was hoping it would be…“

Yuulik reached outside the range of the visual sensors.  When she pulled her hand in, T’Kaal could see a hypospray clutched in Yuulik’s grasp.  Yuulik jammed the hypospray into a dispenser device and she said nothing while the hypospray’s cartridge filled with an injectable green liquid.

“I’ll tell the blood dilithium you said hello,” Yuulik said.

“Please, Sootrah, don’t!” T’Kaal shouted.

Yuulik had already pressed the hypospray to her own neck.  It took no time at all before Yuulik began to convulse and shout out in agony.  Yuulik collapsed onto her table top and her face clearly smashed into her own LCARS display before the subspace communication channel went dead.