The Third Totem
Posted on Tue Mar 10th, 2026 @ 1:07pm by Captain Rovak & Commander Alex Flynn & Lieutenant Commander Intharia T'Zor & Lieutenant Commander Yy & Lieutenant Rune Thul & Ensign Mana'i & Calithra-Esmarill-Tiranas & Lieutenant Nalt Iyel & Master Chief Petty Officer Gaz
Edited on on Tue Mar 10th, 2026 @ 1:08pm
2,305 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Shifting Shapes [4-5]
Location: Senior Staff Briefing Room
Timeline: MD02 - 0900
"Good morning everyone." Intharia T'Zor told the assembled senior staff. "I've asked you all here because there's been a development with one of the totems." She activated a hologram for all to see in the centre of the table. It was one of the totems, lightweight metal containers the size of a hockey puck that were somehow capable of storing a sentient being's entire self. The kind of which T'Zor herself had first emerged from to arrive in this universe.
"The device we've termed number 7 previously featured the image of what we believe to be a fur-clad female with stalked eyes on the top of her head. Every two hours or so since the anomaly shifted to our currently connected alternate universe the image engraved in the top has changed." She pressed a button and the image changed. It was the same totem again, but there was a bird engraved instead of the woman. Then some kind of exotic alien feline, then an insect, and on and on again for another dozen or more changes into animals familiar and strange.
"I believe this is worth taking a look at. And by take a look at, I mean we should open the totem. I know our last attempt to open one of these didn't go so well, but with Mr Volsunga now having joined us, I think we can agree it was a net positive." Thari looked out to her comrades, awaiting their opinions.
Rovak remained quiet, looking to the others, hoping to get any views they had before he spoke.
"Why now?" Flynn asked. "We've had these things for a few months. Whatever's inside isn't going to be less dangerous because the tin is having an identity crisis." Despite the best remedies Federation medical technology could provide, she was still more than a little hungover from showing around the Ferengi Ambassador.
"The interaction between the shift and the totem tells us that they might be connected. If this is the universe of the lifeform within the totem, we owe them an opportunity for freedom and to return home. Time after all, is limited.”
Rune had a concern. “Now it’s disconcerting that someone is kidnapping individuals from other universes and giving them to us, why not return to their own?” He spoke not really expecting an answer as he watched the totem. He glanced over at T’Zor, “are you saying that there’s more then one individual inside one totem, Commander?”
"Whatever the process for sealing an individual in one of these totems entails, it's not something that the imprisoned individual remembers, from my and Mr Volsunga's experiences. We have no idea who imprisoned us, how, or why. We are perhaps just fortunate that this Watchman that the commanders encountered entrusted Starfleet with the totems." She remembered the experience, through Atna's eyes. The Watchman was unlike any being they'd encountered before or since, even Atna had a special regard for the sheer impossibility of him.
"Our technology lets us perceive the pattern that's contained in each of the totems, but for some reason this one is in flux. I would open them all in the hopes of freeing their occupants, but Starfleet Command has instructed us to keep them intact unless there are exceptional circumstances." T'Zor told Thul.
"I have to say, I'm inclined to agree with Commander T'Zor." Dr Iyel said with a hesitance that betrayed the 'acting' at the start of her new Chief Medical Officer title. "The protocols you and Saa have come up with are quite thorough, but at the end of the day I don't think there's any reason to suspect that another universe is more likely to contain some uncurable super-pathogen than any new planet we might encounter in our own galaxy." She told the Asari.
"Thank you, Doctor." T'Zor said with a nod. She was very glad their new chief of medicine was someone already familiar with the strangeness of this place. She didn't say anything further but looked around the room, intending on stopping her focus on Rovak if nobody else spoke up.
"Unless anyone has anything further, I believe these circumstances are adequately exceptional. Please make the arrangements, Commander." Rovak said calmly, with an almost casual cadence that suggested he was not resistant to the idea on any personal level.
1200 - Delta Dock Hazmat Lab
With all the discussions and considerations put into plan, in the Bravo Dock hazardous materials lab. Since Volsunga had trashed the place, Gaz and the team had made it considerably hardier, with a number of developments inspired specifically by reviews on how they could have stopped the Space Marine.
Rovak had given the order, and the process was past the point of no return. Within the newly enlarged and reinforced containment chamber, emitters emitted, and unfathomable energies were channeled into the totem.
As had happened the last time they had opened one of these devices, light and fog burst out of the totem. The cloud quickly dissipated, leaving a being rather unlike any of them had other seen. She was like the centaur of Earth mythology, but mostly blue, with a humanoid face and two extra eyes on stalks atop her head. At the end of a long tail, a wicked blade flickered.
Gaz took a moment to behold the rather striking woman before turning his eyes back to the power levels he was monitoring. There weren't going to be any powerouts or gravity losses today, not while he was around. Well, unless she had the ability to cause that sort of issue with something other than brute force.
In the corner of the room, Ramielos Volsunga towered in his custom designed oversize Starfleet uniform. His field commission had led to orders to stay back, observe and advise if requested, and not to engage under any circumstances unless specifically ordered to by the Captain. He had an ill feeling about this creature. She reminded him of the daemons of Tzeentch, whose neon cyan blood he had waded ankle-deep in with his battle brothers. He put those thoughts aside. This was another being of another universe, where for all he knew, Tzeentch was but a story to be told.
Rune watched as the centaur being was revealed. He smiled, quite majestic, he mused and began comparing the new arrival against the Federation member species Ariolo who are centaurs as well, there were of course many differences but their body shapes seemed quite similar. He wondered who would step forward and greet their guest, the Captain most likely but then again not always.
Cali stepped backwards and forward. Her long tail swished around her trying to blow away the smoke. Once the smoke was gone her tail continued to lash around her cutting a warning arc through empty air. She saw people looking at her. Her second set of eyes looked at her surrounds. All the people wore the same uniforms. She was confused but not scared. She used thought-speech to speak to all of them What is this place? Why have you brought me here? It was forceful and demanding, she needed the people to know she would fight if she did not like what they said.
"Telepath." Flynn said deadpan in case anyone had missed the message, wincing slightly and instinctively rubbing at her ear at the loud questioning from inside her skull, which only seemed to amplify the throbbing.
The Captain stepped forward, approaching the outer edge of the containment ring. The new one was twice the diameter of the old one, which had been thrown at them by their newest tactical officer when he first emerged.
"You are aboard a starbase called Deep Space 13, I am its commander. My name is Rovak. You were trapped within a device we call a totem. Some of the members of our crew were also previously trapped, we do not yet know why or how. Once we have ensured we do not pose any biosecurity threats to one another, we will release you from containment." Rovak explained to their new guest, hoping that she would appreciate the sincerity of the response, and employ her telepathy with a little less volume if she continued with it.
Her tail kept swishing. She spoke with her mouth. "If you are deceiving me, I will avenge. I am Calithra-Esmarill-Tiranas of the Andalite Empire." She looked around and kept stepping back and forth. It calmed her claustrophobia, with her infrared vision she could see the humming forcefields that walled her in. "You are human. What sector are we in?"
"Greetings. We have many humans aboard, but my people are known as Vulcans. The ears and green blood are the tell." Rovak said to acknowledge her introduction. "I must let you know that you are no longer in your native universe. Our station orbits an anomaly that bridges universes, jumping regularly between them. We have discovered a dozen different realities, some are similar, others are quite different. We have crew from half a dozen universes aboard." Rovak explained.
Cali was quiet for a minute while she considered what the man said. "I do not know Vulcans. But I know humans." Cali transformed herself into her human form and in 30 seconds she morphed into a naked biped. "Tell me what I need to do to pass your tests and I will submit." She was just as proud in another body. She wanted to make them trust her more.
"And a shapeshifter. Huh." Alex said for the benefit of anyone who might be looking elsewhere, once again feeling like Commander obvious.
"Fascinating." Rovak said stepping back, to let someone in a blue uniform respond to the change and explain what came next.
"You have nothing to fear." Mana'i stepped forward with a faint brightening of her eyes behind her Kanohi mask. "These people are kind. No harm will come to you while you are here."
Yy was amazed. What a remarkable lifeform.
"Welcome Calithra-Esmarill-Tiranas. I am Intharia T'Zor, chief science officer for this station. We have a very simple method of ensuring quarantine if you will agree. We use our matter transporter to eliminate any undesirable biosecurity factors. All we do is beam you up and down, like we would when taking ourselves anywhere nearby. But if you're not into that, and I wouldn't blame you, we have alternatives." Intharia told their splendid guest.
"What does beaming mean? We do not use this term. If you mean to teleport, I do not trust it, but I will do it." Cali said to the blue woman who said she was science officer. She would not show fear in front of these strangers.
"Yes, precisely." Thari said, realising just how familiar the once-alien technology had become to her. "Mr Gaz, one quarantine transporter cycle, please." She asked the Ops Chief.
"Aye, ma'am." Gaz entered a few controls, and slowly beamed the newcomer up, then restored her in the same place. The system confirmed that the quarantine cycle was completed, he passed along all the relevant data to the medical terminal for Iyel's inspection.
She felt strange when she teleported. But the sound and the lights were comfortable. Cali heard people say that teleporters kill you and make another copy. If that was true, she was a copy now. She took her mind off of that.
Rune crossed to the replicator, he was processing this metamorphic ability. They knew it well thanks to Chameloids, the Founders and the allasomorphs from Daled IV among some others, he ordered a robe. Rune gently folded it and carried over to their guest. “Greetings and welcome, I am the Chief Security Officer of this Station, Lieutenant Rune Thul. Forgive any disrespect by this but please accept this garment, our many cultures may find it difficult to interact with you without one.”
Thari took the robe and placed it on the conveyer that would let it pass through the shield to Cali.
"Thank you." Cali told the man with the black eyes. She put the robe on. "What now?"
"We will have questions for you, as I imagine you will have for us. I was the first to be released from one of these totems, so I know what it's like. I'm happy to show you around the station and be your point of contact. If our Chief Medical Officer is happy with how everything looks, we can let you out now." Thari said, turning to Dr Iyel. "What do you think, Doctor?"
"I'm reading clear on viruses, bacteria and other pathogens." Dr Iyel said confidently, but in truth she was more than a little unnerved at the idea of having to treat a shapeshifting patient, if it came to that. "As far as our medical sensors can tell, she's as safe as any of us."
"Well Captain, unless there's anything further, I think we'd better let her out." T'Zor said to Rovak.
"Agreed." Rovak said simply. He felt unexpected relief at the incident-free opening.
T'Zor gave a quick nod, and entered the sequence to deactivate the safety measures. The large ring that was suspended about waist-height lowered into the floor, and the forcefields deactivated. "Calithra-Esmarill-Tiranas, if you're ready, please step out. We'll need to keep you within this dock for the next little while just in case anything develops, but there are accommodations and entertainment that we wish to offer you. Would you like to come with me?" She asked the newcomer with a smile, offering her open palm.
She stepped out but did not take the woman's hand. She was happy to be offered it but did not show it, her face was serious, she was showing respect. "You may call me Calithra to save time. I open my mind to you." She let her thoughts be open to how could read them.
RSS Feed
