The Blues

Posted on Fri Mar 20th, 2026 @ 1:35pm by Lieutenant Commander Intharia T'Zor & Calithra-Esmarill-Tiranas

2,227 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Shifting Shapes [4-5]
Location: Delta Dock, Guest Quarters
Timeline: MD02 - 1237

This dock was quieter than Calithra had expected since she learned there were 20,000 people on this base.

She had reverted to her natural body. Her four legs adjusted without someone asking them to, the spacing widened, her hindquarters drawing in, the automatic recalibration of a body that had navigated tight spaces before now enjoying the freedom around her. She let her tail swing in wide arcs. Her main eyes tracked the blue woman walking ahead of her and her stalk eyes turned freely in opposite directions, making the map of everything else.

Lighting: consistent, artificial, slightly cooler than the standard Andalite garrison installation. Gravity: Federation standard, which her body had accepted with the same unquestioning competence as the corridor width. Ambient sound: a low harmonic hum she had already identified as the structural signature of a pressurised space station, different from a starship in its timbre, deeper, more constant, the sound of something that did not move. Doors at irregular intervals, most of them sealed. No organic material in any part of the construction. Few windows in this section.

She did not find any of this alarming. She found it instructive.

Ahead of her, T'Zor walked at a pace that was considerate of Calithra's body without making it seem obvious that she hadn't spent a lot of time walking with quadrupeds. Slightly slower than her natural stride. Not slow enough to be patronising.

Calithra had noticed this adjustment in the first twenty seconds and had not commented on it, because the adjustment was correct and commenting would have implied it required acknowledgement.

"Delta Dock is the quietest of the six," T'Zor said, without turning around. "It's where we keep things that need careful handling. Our quarantine procedure for extrauniversal arrivals is to keep any like yourself here for up to a week for observations. We would have held Mr Volsunga here, but he needed slightly more... robust accommodations."

He was a prisoner? Calithra let the question shape itself into thought-speech and felt the particular pause she always felt before transmitting, the half-second assessment of whether this was a question she really wanted to ask. She decided it was. Would she like the answer?

T'Zor glanced back at the sound of it, the thought arriving clearly. "He was. He was very violent when he first appeared, his creators made him that way, they conditioned him to fight and resist and accept only what he had been told. Fortunately we were able to remove the conditioning, and let him think freely." Thari didn't want to get into having to explain the Commander's role in the process just yet.

They did not imprison you? Cali asked.

"No. After some initial scans, I was given quarters and free reign of the station. But it wasn't until I was given a provisional rank that I was allowed to leave this star system."

What did you do to earn your rank?

"I showed that I was trustworthy and useful," Thari said. "In that order. The first took longer than the second." She stopped at a door and gestured to it, her hand highlighted by a small biotic field she'd raised unconsciously, the faintest luminescent shimmer that deflected and resolved almost before it registered. She approached the first door. "Here we are. This is you."

The stalk eyes of Calithra had tracked the biotic field and registered it. She said nothing and followed T'Zor inside.

"These are standard guest quarters. Oh. I've just realised, they were designed for a bipedal humanoid, we'll send over some more appropriate furniture. In the meanwhile, the environmental controls are adjustable and the replicator is the same model as everywhere else on the station, it can produce almost anything you're able to describe to it."

What does it make with food it cannot reproduce correctly?

"It approximates." T'Zor moved to the replicator and spoke a request quietly, grape soda. It produced the a cup of near-fluroescent and unnutritious contents. "I've been trying to get grape soda like they do it in my universe, but it's still not quite right. I've been refining it for a couple of months." She held the cup but didn't drink from it, looking at it in a way that was thoughtful rather than sad. "I consider it a long-term project."

Andalites consume grass through our feet.

"Goodness. Well, there's an arboretum off the promenade, there's hydroponic grass growing there. Or we can have some grown especially for you. The aeroponics here are remarkable." T'Zor said.

I am grateful for your kindness. Calithra looked at the viewport. The stars. You said you could not return to your universe.

"Yes."

Can I return to my universe?

"We hope so. The device that stored you seemed to react to this reality we're currently connected to. When you're ready, we'd like you to take a look at some of the data we've collected here, we're hoping you can tell us if this is your universe. If so, we'll do what we can to get you home, but we only have a limited time here."

Cali moved toward the viewport and stood facing it, her stalk eyes continuing their rotation while her main eyes held the fixed stars. How long do we have?

"The anomaly shifts to a new location every six and a half days, more or less. We can force the shift if we need to, but we haven't figured out how to make it stay longer, or why it changes at all." T'Zor explained.

How long since the last time the anomaly moved.

"Two days ago." T'Zor came to stand beside her, leaving a width of space between them that was respectful without being large. "If this is your universe, we may also be limited by the fact that we're very far from anything. It may take more time than we have to reach the nearest galaxy, let alone the correct one."

If I wanted to return.

"Do you not want to? We wouldn't force you if it isn't what you wanted."

What T'Zor did not say, because it was too early and because Calithra had not asked: that the question of whether she wanted to return was one that changed. That she had wanted to, with a completeness that was almost physical, for the first several weeks. That after she met Atna the wanting had changed its shape over time rather than disappearing. That wanting to return and being glad of what she had turned out not to be mutually exclusive, which was not something she had expected. She had learned this slowly and would not deliver it as instruction.

She drank from her cup instead.

The anomaly has produced enemies.

"Yes. Several." T'Zor turned to face her fully. The question had shifted register she noted, military assessment under the surface, Calithra cataloguing the station's vulnerability profile. She recognized this too. She had done it herself, in the early weeks, from a different professional instinct. "A Dalek, first. Goa'uld, more recently, though several of them are now residents. The threats have also introduced assets. Mr Volsunga. Myself. The Asgard Tyr now serves as an advisor. The risk calculus is complicated."

What is a Dalek?

"Perhaps the most abominable lifeform if I have ever encountered. A creature bred to kill indiscriminately and dedicated to exterminating all non-Dalek life. A geniuses mind gone mad with hate. We're lucky we destroyed it." T'Zor said.

It sounds like it is good that you did.

T'Zor was quiet for a moment that was entirely different from the pauses that had preceded it.

"I don't know," she said. "Taking life is never my preference." She set her cup down on the ledge of the viewport. "That is perhaps the thing I admire most about these people. Where I come from, it is an ideal, but not one that is held to as dearly as in this Federation."

Calithra's tail blade swung once, slowly, in an arc that carried no threat, the gesture of a being who has held itself very still for a long time and was now, by a small amount, less still. Her main eyes stayed on the stationary stars. The stalk eye that had dropped from its rotation to hold T'Zor directly did not return to the ceiling.

I have not acquired asari. Would you let me acquire your morph?

"Oh. I'm not sure, what does that entail?" Thari said. She wasn't often asked questions that left her quite so stumped.

The acquisition requires physical contact and consent. I touch your hand with my hand, the receptors in my skin learn your DNA, and the morph is acquired. It is simple.

T'Zor picked up her cup again. "I don't see why not. Do you mind if I record it with my tricorder?"

You may record.

Thari drank. "Okay. Would you be open to us learning about your abilities? There are shapeshifters in this universe, but none like yourself."

Calithra turned from the viewport to look at T'Zor directly, with both main eyes, for the first time since they had left the containment room. It is your misfortune to live in a universe without Andalites. I am happy to discuss my abilities, but I will not share everything until I know your promise to free me is true.

T'Zor nodded, she had noticed the stalk eyes and found they did not bother her, the near-constant peripheral attention, the perpetual taking of inventory. She had lived for centuries now with crew members whose internal processes were opaque and she had learned to find the alternative communication systems rather than mourn the familiar ones.

I will acquire now, if you are ready.

Thari offered her hand.

Cali placed her palm on T'Zor's. She took at back, her face looked confused. Your DNA is more like.. suggestions than code. Normally I would need to acquire multiple beings of the same species to become anything more than an exact copy. I have not seen this before.

"My people are sexually monomorphic. We are essentially all female. But we reproduce using our telepathic abilities, we can scan another being of any species by merging our minds with theirs. Those electrical patterns can be used to build a DNA template. It all happens unconsciously, our bodies just know." Thari explained, theorising as she went that this was likely the cause of what Calithra described.

Cali began to morph. Her back half retracted and she became a biped again. She was an Asari now, but she looked different in her face than Intharia.

Intharia skipped a breath. She had not expected that seeing another asari would have such an impact on her. But it had been so long. She remastered herself before she spoke with a calming breath. "Your people, Andalites, can you all do this?"

"I will not talk about that yet. I do not wish to offend, but I am tired." Cali said with the mouth of her new asari form. She looked at the hands, and they seemed to glow slightly. She felt the crest at the back of her head.

"I understand. Well, this is quite remarkable. We'll have some information for you to review about this universe sent over, and some grass for you to eat. I'll come by in the morning," she said, moving toward the door. "To see how you've settled. And to answer questions."

I have them now. About this base, this Federation. She returned once more to her Andalite body.

"I know. Our computer can probably answer many of them. Speak to it by saying computer, and it will answer your questions." T'Zor paused at the threshold. "But some of them will change before morning, and I'd rather answer the revised versions." She considered for a moment. "Also you should sleep, if you sleep. The adrenaline from emergence lasts longer than it seems like it should. Until then."

Calithra said nothing to this but she faced Intharia and nodded. Her tail blade settled. Her stalk eyes returned to their rotation, mapping the furniture, mapping the ceiling, mapping the stars.

T'Zor left.

The door did not close immediately, the ventilation of the station moved through the gap before the panel sealed itself, carrying with it a brief composite of the larger environment that was beyond: metal and recycled air and, somewhere distant, something cooking in a galley several corridors away. An organic smell inside of an inorganic place. Calithra catalogued it and could not identify it and set it for later.

She stood at the viewport for a long time after T'Zor was gone. Long enough that the light from her stalk eyes cast faint reflections in the glass. Two dim points that moved in slow and independent arcs above the reflection of her own face, which showed nothing.

The stars were the same as when she had arrived. She was making, she realized, a small and involuntary beginning at learning them.

Intharia felt something she had not felt since long before she arrived in this universe, that somehow, she wasn't completely cut off from her people. Even if it was only simulated, she wasn't the only asari.

RSS Feed