#murderbotweek

[darling-child-tisarwat]

I’m late for crossover day by a few hours but!! Raksura/Murderbot Crossover Day for Murderbot Week!

If you don’t want to read it on Ao3, I’ve copied it under this read more:

“Well,” Moon said as he watched the lone groundling figure stomp through the forest floor, “it’s just one groundling.”

Jade flicked a spine in dismissal. “Look at it though. It’s covered in metal—or something like it. Stone said he hasn’t seen anything like it before, but you’ve been to different regions. Do you know what it is?”

“I don’t,” Moon said, then risked Jade’s annoyance by gliding down closer near the base of the mountain-tree sapling they were using for cover. The groundling was thickly built like an arbora but with none of the grace. It certainly did have metal armor or plating over most of its body, with no facial features, just a smooth, reflective surface like glass.

Jade appeared next to Moon soundlessly and he said, “I think it’s wearing armor. That’s not it’s part of its body.”

Higher up in the branches, they heard a trio of warriors land. Balm glided down and said to Jade, “Knife said there’s a metal flying ship just past one of the hunter’s camps to the south. It’s damaged badly, and the groundling came out of it.”

Moon puzzled over that. “Just one groundling in a flying ship doesn’t—“

A high-pitched keen emanated from a thicket of ground foliage and several grasseaters thundered past the groundling. The groundling widened its stance and its arms shifted to reveal some sort of weapons hidden within. It pointed them in the direction the grasseaters came from, and then two long tendrils appeared, one wrapped around a struggling grasseater, the other whipped towards the groundling.

The Raksura watched as the groundling fired projectiles from its arms, faster and louder than any Kishan weapon. The tendrils retracted, dragging the screaming grasseater back into the foliage.

“Well that wasn’t so bad,” Moon said. Jade gave him a stern look and then the tendrils were back, one using the still screaming grasseater as a bludgeon, striking the groundling in the chest and off its feet. On its back, the groundling was slow to get up, and another two tendrils appeared as the first continued to beat the groundling with the body of the grasseater repeatedly, as the second looped around its legs and neck.

Moon tensed and Jade rustled her spines in warning. “We can’t just let it die,” he said.

“We can,” Jade said.

“We don’t know why it’s here, or if there are others.”

The groundling fired its weapons up into the grasseater as the predator slammed the carcass down on it again. Chunks of meat and viscera flew everywhere and the groundling got an arm under the tendril around its neck while the others tried to restraint its arms. It wasn’t apparent who was winning.

Moon made a face and gestured as if to say I’m going to help, and this is your chance to look like you agreed. Jade growled but jumped off the ledge and onto one of the tendrils, Moon and the warriors following after.

The creature retreated once the Raksura ripped one of its tendrils off, and the groundling sat up and stared at Jade before laying back down again. It didn’t move, just laid there not responding to Altanic or Kedaic. Not responding to anything.

A huge dark shape crested overhead and then shifted to land next to Jade. Stone stood, taking in the scene. Jade flicked a spine in acknowledgment.

“Is it dead?” Sand asked in Raksuran, looking out from behind Balm. Nobody was sure.

“Well,” Stone said after a moment, “Guess I’ll carry it back. The mentors can look at it.”

“What if it starts shooting its weapons at us?” Root said, his frills twitching.

Stone looked unconcerned as he walked towards the groundling and tilted his head to look at it with his good eye. “Then I’ll kill it.”

#

I hadn’t planned to not answer the aliens, but I’m never really one for conversation, even when I’m not being nearly ripped in half by hostiles.

Still, I guess it was sort of rude, seeing as they had helped me. But it was too late for awkward attempts now.

The company’s data packet, shit as it was, had included a file of the layout of the region, a module on Altanic (local trade language), and a brief summary of the Raksura species, seemingly excerpts from a longer data pack written by a Delin-Evran-Lindel. I dunno how the fuck they acquired all of that, if I was supposed to be a preliminary scout to the region (read: meat shield in case shit went south, which it had, I guess.) but it was better than being here without it. And it wasn’t my job to figure out why the company did what it did. All I did was kill things, or kill things so other things didn’t get killed. That’s it.

My current stupid problem: My battery was at 7% and no where near my transport.

“It just stopped moving after you saved it?”

Oh shit. I had avoided looking as that thing had carried me through the air, but opened them as it dropped me down inside what seemed to be a giant knothole in an unbelievably huge tree.

Now I was in some sort of naturally grown room, and looked up to see two humans speaking a language I didn’t know. So there were humans here too. Great. The company didn’t say anything about that, but I guess why would they ever include pertinent information. At least they weren’t on my contract.

“Yeah, just looked at Jade and then laid down and stopped moving. But we don’t think it’s dead.”

“Maybe it’s a defense mechanism.”

I’m extremely uncomfortable at the best of times, but not knowing what they were saying was making me more anxious than usual. I could just say something in the Altanic, but that would require speaking.

“Well what are we going to do? Just wait?”

“Don’t look at me. You’re the mentor, Heart.”

One of the humans crossed its arms, a single bracelet on his wrist. I fixated on for a moment so I didn’t have to make eye contact. Even with my helmet on, I still avoided it if I could.

“Go get Chime. He always figures out weird things like this, and he’s the most non-threatening thing we have.”

“Good idea.”

#

Another human appeared, this one looked more nervous with a mess of sandy blonde hair. He was slow to approach, and held out his hand as if to show he wasn’t a threat and tried to speak slowly. It was more uncomfortable to watch him do this, so I finally just said, “I speak Altanic.”

The human blinked and smiled. I did nothing.

“Oh. Oh good!” He clasped his hands and tilted his head, as if trying to figure out where I was speaking from. He’d probably never seen a SecUnit before, but this whole planet was very strange and I wasn’t about about to explain more than I had to.

“My name’s Chime,” he said and paused as if he was expecting me to give him a name. Which was extremely uncomfortable. After a few seconds he asked, “Are you injured?”

“No, but my battery is low and I’ll have to go into stasis if I can’t charge it.”

Chime stared at me the way humans do when they are freaked out by me and trying not to be.

“What’s a battery? Stasis?”

Shitty company language module. And I doubted they had a ready room or a cubicle I could hole up in.

“I need electrical and resupply leads. If you don’t have SecUnit facilities, I have an adapter I can hook into a standard output.”

Chime’s brow furrowed deeply. He moved towards me, which was alarming in itself, and then he reached out and actually put his hand on my shoulder. And then something even stranger happened:

Performance reliability at 7% and charging.

“Uh.”

Chime removed his hand, apparently aware something had happened. He looked at me, and then shit just kept getting weirder.

“Are you a shifter?”

I had no idea what that meant. So I froze up and said nothing.

“Do you have another form? Are you magical?”

“What?”

Then Chime blurred and if I was capable of pissing myself, I would have. His outline warped and shifted into the form of one of the lizard creatures that had brought me here.

Okay. That’s normal.

I must have said it out loud because Chime said, “most groundlings freak out and think we’re going to kill them. Usually we don’t, though.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said. Chime smiled and at this point I was in too deep so I flipped my visor back and began taking off my armor.

“So it is armor,” said one of the two humans (humans?) from earlier. She had been lurking just outside the door it seemed, listening. Another familiar occurrence.

Once I was vulnerable and exposed, Chime decided to touch me again, which I loved. But the strange recharging happened again, as if I was connected to my cubicle.

“So I’m sort of weird for a Raksura,” Chime said like he was apologizing. All of this was weird, but I didn’t say that. “Sometimes I have abilities normal mentors don’t have—I know I’m a warrior but it’s a long story—and apparently I can heal you. Or charge you. Or whatever you said.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn’t about to argue. The alternative was to be stranded on this planet with a crashed transport and a still inactive beacon. I had my suspicions about how and why the transport crashed, but it would have to wait. I could explain after a recharge and a couple episodes of my shows, to calm me down enough to think clearly.  And I think by this point these weird self-energizing aliens would have killed me by now if they had wanted to.

“It looks like I need physical contact with you to heal you.” He seemed weirdly pleased by this  -!: then whipped a tail up and around my wrist. The connection held when he let go with his hand. “Come on, we can settle up in a bower until you’re better.”

The room was quiet and comfortable, with cushions surrounded by a warm hearth. The other two human-lizard things (Raksura) came back, thankfully in their human forms. Horrifyingly, they settled around Chime and I, one cuddling up to Chime, the other resting her leg against me on my other side.

“Listen, I uh,” I didn’t know what to say, so I blurted out the first thing I could think of, “Have any of you ever seen Sanctuary Moon?”

They all froze and looked at me like I had just slapped them. I know my taste in entertainment is quantitative rather than qualitative, but I guess they really hated it.

“Sorry, nevermind I’ll just—“

“How do you know about that court? It’s one of the oldest in the Reaches,” Chime said, somewhat incredulous.

“What? No it’s a drama not a court show—“

“I’m assuming Moon is a pretty common name for a consort,” the one with the bracelet said, his green eyes full of amusement.

“I mean, Sanctuary Moon was an old southern court, near Opal Night,” Chime continued. “The histories are vague, but we think the bloodlines mingled back into one court for some reason.”

“So my name is an old family one?”

“Yes, but you know how we are with names, or, hmm, maybe you don’t know.”

I decided showing them was easier than explaining so I just set the show to project on the wall before us and threw together a slap-dash set of Altanic subtitles over the feed. It wouldn’t translate that well, but it would keep their interest and it would be insufferable to sit there and just talk to them otherwise.

The opening title screen rolled and they all watched at rapt attention.

“That’s Eden,” I said, when they came on screen, and found myself supplementing information and pausing to explain, even rewinding a few times.

After an episode, they seemed genuinely interested, so I put the next one on.

I’d worry about the mission after we got through season one.