Today's Lesson

Posted on Wed Jun 24th, 2026 @ 1:41pm by Calithra-Esmarill-Tiranas & Lieutenant Commander Intharia T'Zor

2,744 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Shifting Shapes [4-5]
Location: Calithra's Temporary Quarters - Delta Dock
Timeline: MD03 - 0900 Hours

The morning after their latest guest had arrived, Commander T'Zor returned to Calithra's quarters, expecting fresh questions and enhanced understanding. She pressed the chime on the door.

"Come." Cali responded.

"Good morning Calithra. You slept well I trust?" T'Zor asked as she entered, noting the new furniture Cali had selected.

"I did not have a lot of time for sleep. I spent many hours asking your computer questions. And more trying Asari form. Your powers are interesting. Do all your people possess them?" Cali asked.

"More or less. Some are more naturally able than others. How do asari compare to the other morphs you possess?" Thari asked.

"I like the form. There are no overpowering instincts. It is a strong and capable body. I sense the capacity for great intellect." Cali said.

"I'm glad to hear it. I like it too. It's lucky to have a form one is satisfied with, I know. Do you find the some forms feel more natural to you than others?" Thari asked.

"The forms of sentients do not usually have the wild instincts of wilder species. The instincts can be powerful and hard to fight. But when I am not as an Andalite, I have always found human form easy and convenient. They may not be particularly good at anything, but they are competent and manageable." Cali told the science officer.

"That is a fair assessment of humans," Thari said. "Most of their strengths only become obvious in aggregate."

Cali studied her. "You say that as if you have had long time to observe them."

"I have. At home, and here. It's still surprising how different humans are here to the ones I know from my own universe."

That made Cali tilt her head. "This place is strange."

"Deep Space 13?" Thari asked.

"This universe. This system. This station. All of it." Calithra folded her hands together. "Your computer says one planet alone contains thousands of cultures, languages, religions. It seems an exhausting way to organize a civilization."

"It is," Thari said. "And yet they persist in making it work often enough to show it's more than just aggressive optimism."

"You admire them."

Thari's mouth moved by the slightest degree. "Some of them."

Cali noticed that. "Not all."

"Certainly not all."

Calithra seemed satisfied by the precision of that answer. "What was your universe like, then?"

Thari looked toward the viewport for a moment before answering. "Not always peaceful, though it told itself it was civilized. I was born before the end of a war that very nearly destroyed everything. And I mean, everything. We fought an enemy eager to annihilate sentient life, and very capable of it. By the time I was old enough to choose my own life, most of what remained was rebuilding. Recovery. Relief work. We learned to value competence quickly, and sentiment more quietly."

Calithra listened without interrupting.

"I spent decades on frontier worlds helping people survive what war had done." Thari went on. "Then I returned to study. Eventually I ended up on Earth, of all places, and found that humans had more value than I expected."

Cali's mouth twitched faintly. "And after that?"

"I joined our exploration corps. Deep space assignments. Long missions. Curiosity, mostly. It has always been my worst and best quality." Thari glanced back at her. "It's also how I ended up here. I found a device that crossed between universes. I did what any sensible scientist would do and used it repeatedly until it got me into trouble."

Cali stared at her for a beat. "That does not sound sensible."

"No, but it was worth it." Thari said.

That won the nearest thing to a smile Cali had shown yet.

"So this station was not your destination."

"Hardly. I arrived here trapped in a totem and very much at the mercy of strangers."

Cali's eyes narrowed with interest. "And now you are one of them."

"Lieutenant Commander, Chief of Science. I'd say that's near enough."

Cali leaned back. "My own life in the Imperial Military was simpler. Not easier, but simpler. Our greatest enemy was defeated centuries ago, but threats remain. Survival. Concealment. Orders. Becoming what I needed to become. There was not much space for comfort. Or for indecision."

"That, I understand." Thari nodded slowly.

Cali glanced around the room again. "And still these people make quarters comfortable. They cook for pleasure. They argue socially. They spend time together for no tactical purpose."

"That is one of the stranger human practices, yes."

"Only human?"

"Oh, no. They are merely the most committed to it. The station has Vulcans, Andorians, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, civilians, diplomats, colonists, refugees, and at the moment more multiversal complications than any sane administrator would choose. But humans have a particular gift for turning survival into routine, and routine into domesticity."

Cali considered that carefully. "You approve of this now."

"Now?" Thari echoed.

"You were not raised for it."

"No," Thari said. "In my universe there's a great deal of collaboration between species, but distinctions and boundaries are more obvious. There is some overlap, but not enough."

Then Calithra asked, "What restrictions have these people put on you?"

Thari's eyes returned to her. "Now? None. Do you mean at first?"

"Yes. When you arrived. When nobody knew if you were danger, asset, or problem." There was no offence in it. Just the tidy cruelty of accuracy.

Thari folded her hands behind her back. "There were limitations. Observation. Questions. Reasonable caution. I had emerged from an object nobody understood, carrying knowledge of things nobody could verify. If the positions had been reversed, I would have been suspicious too."

"But they did not keep you prisoner."

"No. They could have, more easily than they like to admit. They did not."

"Why?"

"Partly ethics. Partly curiosity. Partly because this Federation has developed a habit of receiving the inexplicable with friendship." Thari paused. "And partly because Captain Rovak is not a jailer by instinct. I haven't met many other Federation Captains, but few of them seem that way inclined."

Cali absorbed that. "And now?"

"Now there are none."

"No restrictions?"

"None that don't also apply to others. I am trusted by the crew. I can go where I please, pursue my work, speak to whom I choose. I could leave the system entirely if I wished."

"But you do not."

"I haven't had reason to." Thari admitted with a shrug.

Cali's gaze sharpened. "That is not the full answer."

"No," Thari said. "It's not."

Cali waited.

Thari let out a quiet breath. "At first I remained because I had nowhere else to go. Then because there was work worth doing. Then because there were people worth staying for. By the time one notices such things, they have already become difficult to untangle."

Cali seemed to think that over more seriously than the answer might have seemed to warrant.

Then she asked, "What is life really like here?"

Thari gave a low, almost amused exhale. "Chaotic."

"That I already know. Your computer makes no attempt to hide it."

"Then you know a great deal already." Thari moved a little farther into the room. "Life here is a succession of interruptions. Scientific uncertainties. Diplomatic incidents. Mechanical failures. Sudden arrivals from inconceivable places. Every time you think the station has become predictable, something entirely unexpected appears out of nowhere."

"That part sounds familiar."

"Yes. But it is not only that. It is also..." Thari searched for the word and found herself unexpectedly reluctant to say it too simply. "Communal."

Cali's expression turned skeptical.

"I know," Thari said. "The word inspires cynicism. But it's true. People here involve themselves in one another's lives. More than I was accustomed to. They check after one another. They share. Everything. Grief, joy, resources. They fight and remain friends. It's not... normal, but it appears to be one of the reasons the place functions. I mean, they did all those things at home, but for a military organisation, the biggest military organisation to be made up of people, not soldiers... it's still something that doesn't make total sense to me."

"Where I come from, attachment was a liability," Cali said.

"On many frontiers it is."

"And on yours?"

Thari was quiet for a moment. "On mine, attachment mattered. But duty came first, and was spoken of more openly. People were expected to be useful before they were permitted to be vulnerable."

"And here?"

"Here they are much less disciplined about pretending they do not need one another."

That, unexpectedly, made Cali look away.

She was silent long enough that Thari let the silence remain.

At length Cali said, "When I was released yesterday, they spoke as if I would be free. But also as if I would be watched."

"Both are true," Thari said. "You're new. You're powerful. You are unusual even by our standards. The station would be foolish not to exercise caution. Shapeshifters are rare here, and they've caused a lot of problems in the past. The greatest war of the last century was fought against them. You're free to move around this dock, but they want to wait 48 hours so we can be sure that there's no risk of us endangering each other with something our scanners might have missed."

"And you are defending that."

"I am explaining it. Because I agree with it." Thari's tone stayed even. "This place is kinder than most, but it's not naive. It cannot afford to be. We have all seen too much arrive through that anomaly wearing a reasonable face."

Cali nodded once. She could respect that.

Then, more quietly, she asked, "Do you think they really accept you?"

T'Zor did not answer immediately.

Cali looked at her steadily. "Or are they using you because you are useful?"

The stillness that followed was different from the last ones. Thari's expression did not harden, exactly, but something in it withdrew and became more deliberate.

Finally she said, "I know for a fact that at least one of them did."

Cali straightened slightly. "Did."

"Yes."

"Who?"

Thari's gaze slipped briefly past her, toward nothing in particular. "That's a subject I'm not quite ready to discuss. Sorry."

Cali kept watching her. "Because it still matters."

"Yes."

"Because you still care about this person."

That almost drew a visible reaction. Almost.

Thari answered with care. "The facts are not simple or well-understood enough to make conversation about them."

Caliithra let that stay. She was direct, not stupid. She recognized the edge of something cut too recently, whatever the calendar might claim.

After a moment Thari continued on her own. "If you are asking whether I think the entire station merely tolerates me because I am informative, novel, or useful, no. Not anymore. When I first arrived, utility helped. I made myself useful quite assertively, I think. It's my habit. And it felt better than being stranded."

"You wanted a place here."

"I did."

"And you have earned it."

"Eventually." Thari's expression softened, though only slightly. "This crew has a habit of making room for people who arrive from impossible circumstances. Not instantly. Not without questions. But genuinely, more often than not."

"Even for outsiders."

"Especially for outsiders, sometimes. So many of them are one kind of outsider or another that the distinction has become difficult to sustain."

Cali looked faintly thoughtful at that.

"But yesterday I promised you answers. Do you have any follow-up questions?" Thari asked.

Cali gave her a flat look. "Of course."

That finally did draw a hint of dry amusement from Thari. "Please, ask."

"If I stay here, will they put restrictions on me?"

"Possibly, if you give them reason. And they may ask that you avoid using your shapeshifting for anything that could compromise security. Otherwise, not in any severe sense. There will be procedures, expectations, privacy limitations where security requires them. But that is true for officers born in this universe as well. And the current restrictions limiting you to this dock are only temporary."

"They said I could move freely here. In this dock, at least."

"And they meant it." Intharia nodded.

"But not carelessly."

"You don't strike me as someone who does anything carelessly."

Cali accepted that with a small nod. "If I wanted to leave later, would they stop me?"

"Under ordinary circumstances, no. You've broken no law. The station has no authority to restrain you, even if Starfleet's commanders do prefer that you remain at arm's length, as they did with me." Thari paused. "If you had become entangled in some active security concern, that would be another matter. But as things stand, you aren't a prisoner."

Cali seemed pleased by the clarity of that.

"Another question," she said. "Do all these people really believe their own words about freedom?"

"Some believe them more deeply than others," Thari said. "From what I've learned, most are taught the ways before the understanding behind them. But enough of them mean it sincerely that the culture bends in that direction, even when individuals fail to."

Cali's brow furrowed. "That sounds like a scientist's answer."

"It is a scientist's station."

That earned another near-smile.

Cali went on. "Why do you continue to spend this time with me? And why did you show me this place yesterday? You are a senior officer here. You did not have to do that."

"No, I didn't." Thari said. She considered the rest a moment before giving it plainly. "When I came here, I was dependent on the patience of strangers. I remember that very well. I also know what it is to prefer facts to reassurance when one is trapped in unfamiliar conditions. You seemed likely to value a direct answer over a comforting one."

"I do."

"I had noticed."

Cali folded her arms. "And nothing else?"

Thari gave her a look. "There was also professional interest. Your species is extraordinary. But I am trying not to seem too much like a biologist observing an interesting sample."

Cali huffed a soft breath that was, for her, very close to a laugh.

Then her expression turned serious again. "If I do as you did, if I choose the this place over my old life, would these people see that as... weakness?"

Thari answered at once. "No."

Cali waited.

"There is nothing weak about wanting peace," Thari said. "Nor in wanting competence, safety, companionship, or a life that is more than endurance. Many societies teach otherwise because people are easier to govern when they are denied softer ambitions. Besides, the anomaly is strange and unpredictable. There is no guarantee that home will ever be an option for us."

Cali's eyes held on Intharia's.

"I spent a long time being useful," Thari said, more quietly now. "I don't regret that. But usefulness is not the same thing as belonging, and survival is not the same thing as living. Deep Space 13 is untidy, overextended, absurdly vulnerable to impossible events, and often emotionally exhausting. But it is one of the few places I have known where a person can become more than the worst thing that happened to them, or the most effective skill they wield."

Cali looked away after that, toward the viewport and the station beyond it.

When she spoke again, her voice was lower. "That is very different from home."

"Yes, for me too." Thari said.

Silence settled between them, but this time it did not feel uncertain. It felt considered.

After a while Thari asked, "Was there anything else? I'd love to stay, but the senior officer gig does come with responsibilities."

"Not now," Cali said. "But later, yes. Probably many."

Thari turned toward the door.

"Intharia T'Zor." Cali said to get her attention once again.

T'Zor stopped and looked back.

Cali's expression was difficult to read, but not impossible. "If I decide they are worth trusting, it will not be because this place is comfortable."

"No?" Thari asked.

Cali shook her head. "It will be because you answered me honestly. Even when you did not answer everything."

Thari held her gaze for a moment, then inclined her head. "I'm glad to hear it."

And with that she took her leave, knowing well that before long Calithra-Esmarill-Tiranas would have more questions, and she would look forward to answering them.

As T'Zor left, Calithra once again assumed the Asari form, before changing back. These Asari were strange and capable. So too were Andalites, in the eyes of humans. If there was no place for her here, she would make one.

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