Birds of a Feather

Prologue

"MAMA!"

—

Space was dark, and and abyssal in a way that nothing else could be. The way no sound passed. At all. The way is was dark, and barely even lights bothered it, if it weren't a star or something. It was colder than the arctic, and more crushing than a trash compactor.

It was scary in a more unique way. Like the ocean.

So it was horrifying to be pushed out overboard your ship, by your own crew, into that darkness. And left behind, after the fact. Laughing all the while.

Of course, eventually to preserve your systems, especially in the case of a youngling which would happen a heck of a lot sooner, you'd be forced into stasis lock, and if not saved, eventually die, though it would be a peaceful, painless death.

And so, there were the younglings. Floating adrift in space, in stasis lock, left to die.

—

— EP ... BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP ... B —

There was suddenly sound again, it was a complete jumbled mess, but it was sound.

Gave the feeling of somewhat rushing around, but not too quickly, not in the biggest hurry in the world.

Upon opening their optics, their vision was blurry. Barely able to make out a figure in front of them, possibly in front of a console, and holding something. They seemed to be talking.

They rolled their head over to the side. Half their vision was taken up by a medical berth's side barring. What was left they could see three figures. One was bigger than the other two. Someone else was talking in the background.

They didn't last long. They passed out again, but it was a little nicer this time.

—

They awoke in an odd amount of pain, feeling somewhat crushed, and could barely open their optics, anymore. Their mouth tasted funny- no, disgusting for some reason, and they didn't know why. Felt like a blindfold or optic covering of some sort, along with a blast mask too.

Eventually through the pain their words barely got past their lips, voice full of static, and even their tongue was in pain.

"...I don't wanna die..."

They softly sobbed, while they heard a rolling chair moving, pedfalls, and some light but fervent and concerned chatter.

In meantime a bright light suddenly seemed to emit, and a hand was settled on their head, stroking them gently, while they spoke as well, seeming to try and soothe them back into unconsciousness again. The voice they heard was soft, and quiet, trying not to startle. It sounded deep, and yet still had a certain sweet lilt to it, making it vaguely sound slightly higher pitched than the average mech.

The voice's intonation was oddly relaxing, and the EM field was warm, as they spoke, managing to soothe them off enough that they hardly noticed they were being poked with something, and that they were suddenly more tired.

The last thing they heard before they fell under was that voice, warmly assuring them.

"𝓓𝓸𝓷'𝓽 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓻𝔂, 𝓼𝔀𝓮𝓮𝓽𝓼𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓴𝓼. 𝓘'𝓵𝓵 𝓶𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝓼𝓾𝓻𝓮 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓵𝓪𝓼𝓽, 𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓶𝓮."