“I’m telling you, Avery, girls think Academy grads are studs and us ROTC guys are schlubs.” Lt. Vince Biltmore continued on from an earlier conversation.

“We’ve still got the same commissions.” Avery countered. “Think about how many Academy ring-bangers you and I beat out to be assigned to the Enterprise. That should tell you all you need to know.”

Biltmore shook his head. Leave it to Avery to come off sounding so practical. “You must have a hard time getting laid.”

“I do just fine, thank you.” He said.

Avery and Biltmore moved over to their right as a larger party approached in the corridor. Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, Dr. McCoy, and a fourth man passed by, engrossed in their own conversation. Avery stopped.

“What the hell?” Biltmore thudded into his friend. “It’s not like you to be star-struck. It’s just the Captain and part of his command team.”

Avery waved him back. “That’s strange.”

A middle-aged crewman walked past and barely contained an eye-roll at the two young officers.

“What?” Biltmore looked up and down the corridor.

“I swear, that I just saw my high school band teacher.” Avery turned around. “Or someone who looks just like him.”

“With the Captain?”

“That can’t be him.”

“Then it’s not. Let’s go and hit the mess before all the good stuff is gone and we’re stuck with all the leftovers.” Biltmore made a move to continue on their original heading only to find himself chasing after Avery.

“Dr. Tralnor!” Avery called.

Biltmore ran into Avery again. Ready to chew his friend out and forcibly drag him to lunch, he felt his knees gelatinize as the foursome reversed course. Whoever Avery thought he’d seen, there was no possible way the second Vulcan in the group, also decked out in Science blues, was a high school teacher from central California.

“What the hell are you doing here—Sir?” Avery was, for lack of a better term, agog.

You are so screwed, amigo, Biltmore thought, and you’ve dragged me into this. Avery and the Vulcan stood face-to-face, regarding each other in some manner Biltmore couldn’t identify, and only chirping crickets could have made the exchange more odd than it already was.

“Repenting for a youthful indiscretion.” The Vulcan replied as he held out his right hand.

Biltmore nearly screamed as Avery dared to touch this man. His brain shouted: Avery! You’re not supposed to do that! Dr. McCoy’s face echoed the young Lieutenant’s thoughts.

“Gentlemen,” the Vulcan said, “this is Alton Michelle Avery, one of my former students: Three years All-State trombone, marching percussion, and a graduate of the mechanical engineering program at Cornell University.”

Avery gave a slight nod, his line of sight transfixed on his former instructor’s head. “Sarah David is on board too. She’s in medical microbiology and will be over the moon to know you’re here.”

The Vulcan looked up into his own hairline before saying, “Starfleet thinks we are all the same.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Incensed, Avery went on. “They should have given you a cultural practices exemption for that part of the dress code. You’re T’Kehr Temple Ko-tek’ru Kaylara t’Lyr Saan, which unlike the strictly Suriakian clans, means you wear your hair long so that you have something of yourself to offer when you enter consecrated spaces.”

Commander Spock picked up the description as Kirk, McCoy, and Biltmore were mystified at Avery’s description. “Lt. Commander Tralnor, unceremoniously shorn by Starfleet barbers, must wait until his hair grows out and he is ritualistically reaccepted into the temple. Small amounts of hair are snipped and placed into the fire pot at the foot of the Memorial Wall. It signifies that one is willing to make a sacrifice for the salvation of the clan in the face of what once was never-ending war.”

“Must smell delightful.” McCoy quipped.

“Dr. Tralnor, how long are you here?” Avery finally broke his gaze.

“My orders are for six months. I shall catch up with you and Sarah later.”

Avery smiled, flattered and excited that his old teacher would deign to spend time with him. “Great. This is amazing.”

The command staff regrouped and went back on their way to whatever corner of the ship, leaving Biltmore and Avery taking up space in the corridor.

“Did we just step into an alternate universe? How is an emotionless, formerly long-haired, science officer your old band director? This doesn’t make sense. And how do you know so much about Vulcans?” Biltmore gave a slight shake to try and right his mind. “Avery?”

“I wonder what Dr. Tralnor meant by ‘youthful indiscretion’?”

“When Spock requested we bring you on, I didn’t ask any questions because I trust his decisions regarding personnel implicitly," Kirk said.

They’d eventually landed in a small conference room that offered a view of the stars as the ship streaked through on impulse power. Tralnor read between the lines of what the Captain was saying. “I honestly don’t know what I can possibly bring to Spock’s outstanding science department. I have a background in acoustical physics and how performance spaces compliment or hinder instrumental ensembles. I work with students from ninth grade to Ph.D. level.”

“I’m sure he’s got something figured out for you.” Kirk gave an appreciative glance toward his first officer.

Tralnor didn’t have to be a psion to interpret the not-so-subtle longing in the captain’s eyes. The involuntary empathic circuits in Tralnor’s brain sought out and absorbed the explosion of unrequited longing between the human captain and the Vulcan first officer. Kirk’s need was encompassing, warm, and wanted to draw Spock in, wrapping him in a blanket to protect against the cold, cruel universe. Spock, forever trapped in the hybrid’s dilemma of never being enough of any one thing to please those around him, wanted Kirk to want him on the grounds of merely being himself. These brilliant flashes of emotion and tumult abruptly terminated at McCoy’s interruption.

“I was reviewing your medical records, and your psionic abilities are practically off the charts.” McCoy was a cloud of bantering wit and medical fact buzzing and blending into neat flow charts of information frosted with trace amounts of sarcasm and genteel southern bedside manner.

“They are, yes.” Tralnor didn’t want to get into the specifics of his various mental oddities. Rather, he needed to figure out his quarters and get his luggage rounded up. The civilian transport line he’d taken for part of his trip to catch up with the Enterprise lost one of his cases. Starfleet supposedly tracked it down. He’d believe it when he saw all three cases lined up on his bunk.

“Now, I keep coming across this term, hyper-empath. This old country doctor doesn’t really know what that means in context.” The doctor projected good, old human curiosity, something Tralnor could identify with. McCoy let loose with a slight grin.

“Are you prepared for a history lesson on pre-Reform Vulcans, namely Clan Lyr Saan?” He hadn’t been aboard for two hours, and he was making the two humans in the room nervous. Tralnor, while outwardly exhibiting the stereotypical stoic behavior Vulcans are famed for, was different enough from their baseline to warrant a scattering of suspicion.

Two nodding heads prompted the story. Tralnor wanted to ask Spock if it was too late to bail on this assignment but started to speak. “The Lyr Saan were a slave race created by the Golic clans via a combination of genetic engineering and gene splicing. We were designed to be even-tempered and subservient. Our overdeveloped psionic abilities made us near-perfect spies.”

“And weapons.” Spock added.

“We were horrifying weapons, assassins, kae’at knal’lursu (mind-rapists), rum nem-torsu (dream stealers), duv’torsu (shadows), kae’at knal’lursu (telepathic eavesdroppers). . .” Tralnor trailed off to let the descriptions set in. “We could indescriminantly destroy people’s minds, administering the eschak on our masters’ orders. Undoubtedly, the most valuable of all of us were the mair-rigolauya, hyper-empaths.”

Spock remained the only one of the three Enterprise men who did not want to flee. “Hyper-empaths cannot avoid experiencing the emotions of every entity around them, some to the point they can read the psychic residue left on objects. There is a saying that the mair-rigolauya are the mirrors of our souls. And as Vulcans, they bare the burden of controlling their own emotions and not crumbling under the weight of others’.”

“This is where things get, interesting, I suppose.” Tralnor saw the cogs grind in the humans’ brains. His speech patterns more closely mimicked those of the people he spent the majority of his time with: humans. That was, at this point, unnerving. “Warlords, generals, soldiers, criminals, those of the ilk most likely to succumb to catastrophic battle wounds discovered that as a last resort they could lock themselves in an isolated room with a hyper-empath who’s drugged up on ketro’nistin. With or without a healer’s aid, they’d forcefully meld with the compromised empath and shift the burden of their physical destruction to this other person. That is how most hyper-empaths died. Mair-rigolauya were hunted, stolen, and sold to save the lives of those who only wanted to drag out the wars.”

Unsure if he should be repulsed or fascinated, McCoy asked, “Are all Lyr Saan hyper-empaths?”

“No.” Tralnor said. “Just the really unlucky ones.”

“Now, as our resident hobgoblin delights in reminding me, there ain’t nothing logical about luck.” Jovial antagonism drifted off the doctor.

Captain Kirk remained in his seat in anticipation of another verbal spar between his friends. Apparently, the entertainment value was endless and far exceeded any of the canned programming on the computers.

“There was nothing logical about how the Lyr Saan were created.” Tralnor didn’t know how to say it any other way.

“You mentioned even-tempered and subservient, it’s my understanding that pre-Reform Vulcans were anything but.” Kirk shifted, and Tralnor watched how his shoulders moved, how he held his hands at the table, and the way he held his face. He believed he could already see what Spock found compelling about this man.

“It must have taken decades of selective breeding.” McCoy commented.

“All of the first and part of the second generations were built in labs. They didn’t have living parents. Their DNA was an amalgamation of dominant desired traits.” Tralnor was hesitant to say the next part and sent a questioning glance at the first officer.

“In order to secure the proper temperament,” Spock began, “additional DNA was sourced. That material did not come from Vulcan.”

“Humans.” Tralnor said. “The Golic geneticists got what they wanted from humans the spacefaring slavers sometimes peddled.”

McCoy’s jaw dropped. “That’s—I don’t want to say it’s not possible, but damn.”

Kirk, more deliberately thoughtful, paused to reflect on Tralnor’s declaration. “I think I can see how that makes sense. The human DNA was introduced to make you docile and adaptive while the exaggerated Vulcan traits made you dangerous.”

“Precisely, Captain.” Tralnor decided to continue the story. “Approximately five generations before the Reform, the Lyr Saan rebelled against their masters. They set out to become scholars as to teach people to break the cycles of vicious violence and war by thinking in a more rational and academic manner than succumbing to immediate emotional responses. We stress objectivity and the mastery of one’s emotions as a directional compass to aid in decision making. Our enemies saw to it that we were not allowed to become pacifists, that we spent a lot of our time and energy on defending our freedom and the existence we’d created for ourselves.”

“They have, over time, evolved from battlefield bogeymen to disdained intelligentsia too out of touch with their Vulcan warrior roots, and while they have since adopted some of the Surakian philosophies, they are unique within modern society.”

“And by unique, Spock means we’re still thought of as freaks and typically treated as such behind closed doors. The Lyr Saan are one of Vulcan’s dirty little secrets. Our abilities are still incredibly useful, and people want you when you’re useful, any other time though, we’re just kafelar sutoriksu (“synthetic” slaves), va’amaular t’ha-vel (mimics of living things), generally distrusted, and considered by many to simply be insane.”

Boggled, McCoy didn’t like the way that sounded and was also the veteran of some of Vulcan’s other dirty little secrets. The doctor didn’t need to be a telepath to throw out the word typical regarding the logicians of 40 Eridani A. “Seems prejudicial to me.”

Tralnor offered a short shrug. “It is what it is, Doctor.”

“I suppose that’s the attitude you’d have to take, dealing with these pointy-eared devils.”

“Etek nam-to hi e’shuaiar sha’ferikan.” Tralnor spoke slowly. “Clan Lyr Saan’s motto: We are but monsters of your own design.”

Unwilling to let the room devolve into an uncomfortable for humans silence, McCoy shook his head. “Scathing, if I do say so myself. Now, back to this hyper-empathy thing, is this something me or my medical staff are gonna have to worry about?”

“You shouldn’t.” Tralnor responded. He could never say for sure when and where those abilities might come into play and lead to a situation where he physically compromised himself in order to ensure someone else’s survival.

Used to definitive answers from Vulcans, even Kirk struggled fully comprehend just what in all of hell Tralnor might mean when he used the word shouldn’t. He looked at Spock, hoping that man had an explanation, only to find nothing. “So long as your psionic abilities don’t compromise your fitness for duty, Lt. Commander Tralnor.”

“They shouldn’t.” He used that open-to-interpretation word again.

McCoy slipped into a crusty/glowering part of his mind where he most of his thinking regarding hard and/or stubborn patients like Kirk and Spock. “Look here—Doctor Tralnor—I expect that you report to sickbay immediately if you experience any issues with that noggin of yours.”

Tralnor could not promise such a thing but was glad that the doctor dropped his rank and went with his academic honorific instead. A forced stint in Officer Candidate School did little to temper the slight rancor he felt every time someone looked at the braid and bits decorating his sleeves and called him Lt. Commander. “I will see what I can do.”

McCoy’s expression soured, dumping out a wave of, Fucking fantastic, I’ve got another one. Stubborn Vulcan bastards. “Well, Gentlemen, its time for supper. I’ll see you all in the mess, especially you, Spock. And don’t even think about delivering me some line of crap about how you don’t need food or sleep because of your superior Vulcan physiology.”

(He sounds like your mother, Spock.) Tralnor gave the slightest mental nudge on Spock’s shields before sending that statement into the first officer’s brain. Sometimes, being a full-blown telepath had its advantages.

Spock let Tralnor establish the temporary speech link so their sub-rosa communication could continue without initiating a genuine meld. (There are times when I think Doctor McCoy and Lady Amanda corroborate in their constant efforts to “look after” my wellbeing.)

Need/desire/desperation lapped over into Tralnor’s mind. Spock mentally recoiled, oozing self-deprecating shame at his feelings toward his captain. When, unlike other Vulcans, Tralnor did not express disgust at the un-acted upon love, the intensity of Spock self-directed hate ratcheted down.

(Is that one of the other reasons you wanted me here, Spock?)

(Yes. . .) The first officer barely got the word to form on the tip of his mind.

“Come on, you two.” McCoy had Kirk waiting by the door. “Stand up, one foot in front of the other, to the mess hall. Consider those doctor’s orders.”