Chapter Text
It’s a new day, a new planet, and everyone is leaving you here on the ship.
Well, not everyone. The planet that the lost light arrived on is apparently full of biological life, and no sentient beings. Simply a massive garden. Most of the bots who don’t want to get dirty or look at the fauna remain on the ship, however there are still a number who have been asked to go down anyway. There is apparently a large number of energon deposits on this planet that were made early in the war as an effort to hide it away from the enemy. However, these reserves were forgotten about by their own faction until recently when an organic trading outpost asked those on the lost light to help with the chemicals coming from the crystals leeching into the nearby fauna and water.
The plan is to get close enough to the deposit to confirm that it is energon, maybe get some, observe the impact on the near environment, relay the information to a third party, then tell the outpost approximately how long it will take to remove.
So the majority of people on the planet are moving rocks, doing paperwork or looking at plants.
You can see the outside planet and it looks breathtakingly similar to your own home. Bushy shades of green sprout from the soil at varying heights, moss covers almost all you can see, the sky is gray and there is a light fog that clings to the tree’s canopies. If you look at the edge of the window, you can faintly see an ocean. Near the loading door the air smells damp, earthy, and alive.
It's enough to make you feel a little homesick.
Your walking is getting better, still more comfortable to crawl everywhere, but at least it means you can attempt climbing. You’ve been looking at the bot’s tracks and footprints that have been dragging in crushed leaves, mushrooms and moss. (It’s so similar to your own home, you can feel hands clawing from within you wanting out.) Grabbing a small crate, you drag it next to one of the bay’s windows and practically launch yourself onto it to try and get on top.
You are able to get your head and upper body on the crate. You plant your head firmly on the crate in an attempt to pool your weight above your legs to make it easier to haul yourself over. You quickly slam your left servo on the left corner of the crate. Hooking your leg is going to be much more difficult, but you try anyway.
It’s at this time that Rodimus walks in, appearing to be in conversation with Perceptor who walks in immediately after him with a datapad in his hand. However, whatever conversation is halted when both bots watch your masterful attempts at climbing a crate. Head down, one arm under your body, one on the corner, all while your left leg is swinging to reach your left arm, but only meets halfway.
Rodimus laughs before making his way over to you, “Did you need some help bud? I don’t think slamming your leg into a crate is very good for you.” Grabbing you from the side, he picks you up like a sack of potatoes and makes sure to throw you a short distance in the air before catching you. Scowling at him, you point to the window.
“No fun with Roddy? Could you try saying Roddy? Or Rod-i-mus?”
“They can’t talk yet, Rodimus.”
“Well I know what their first word is going to be!”
Being a baby is easy, but you need to be a smart baby. You have been practicing talking and babbling in secret. Apparently the medics say that you’ll pretty much babble in static until you're ready to start talking. Something about sparkling development, but that just means that you can fake learning really quickly and appear like a genius if you start practicing before they know you can talk. You want to appear like a quick and smart learner to solidify your standing as a genius and trustworthy baby.
However you cannot divulge that practice right now, else all your hard work would be for naught. Even though you really want outside. Scowling deeper, then lightening your expression when you have an idea. Wringing your little servos to look extra cute and looking Rodimus in the optics before pointing and sniffling. Although Rodimus looks like he wants to say something, it’s Perceptor that talks first.
“It’s rare that you want to go outside. And isn’t it Chromedome’s turn to watch over you? Normally he’s quite good at that.”
Rodimus holds you to his chassis (always very nice since he is always very warm) before walking back over to Perceptor. “You were saying that there was practically no sign of danger to cybertronian life, or any signs of leeching conrrect?”
“...that’s correct.”
“You were also saying that you wanted more data, and that it wouldn’t take very long.”
“It’ll take longer with a bitlet with me if that’s what you're getting at.”
“Would it take all day long?”
“I don’t see why it would. But I would like another bot with me to keep an optic on them if we are going to let them out.”
“Hound is out there now, I’ll ask if he wants to join you.”
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Hound’s a gentle mech and good with sparklings. Although he does tend to really baby you.
Hound holds both of your servos as you waddle across the grass. It’s refreshing. To smell earth and water and plants. You’ve been taken off the beaten path that had been created from the multitude of mechs walking the same steps. Perceptor wanted a wider array of data to truly understand the effects of energon on the organic environment and Hound seemed to be excited to go anywhere. The grass was wild and every time you stepped tiny bugs cleared a path for you. The trees are massive and the moss covers all you can see. It’s quite bushy in sunny spaces. And quite thin where the shadows linger. You squirm in Hounds hold to run your servos over some lichen on a large rock and it’s soft.
Hound stays beside you and watches you play with the moss. “Careful nothing goes near your dermas.”
Looking over, Perceptor adds to Hounds warning, “They can’t taste either. Take extra care in watching them, since they won’t spit it out because it tastes bad.”
Humming, Hound agrees, “That’s right. I always forget that their taste is still turned off. They eat pretty good for not tasting anything.”
You spot some pretty white flowers that have their heads dropped all around the rock. You pinch the stem and are reminded of the familiar crunching sensation of cutting up green onions. Crawling forward, you look for more flowers and greens. It’s refreshing to see something that reminds you so much of home when there’s practically none of it in your day to day life.
A few feet in front of you is a patch of yellow flowers that curls upwards in itself and you make your way towards it. In doing so, your servo falls into a small hole and you hear a squeak. Immediately, you pull your servo out and assess the damage.
It seems to be the equivalent of a gopher hole. Very unlikely that the thing that’s in there looks like a gopher though. You hear it squeak again. It’s high pitched and short, like sliding a shoe on a basketball court. It doesn’t seem like you’ve done any damage and the only mess on your servos is the dirt and plants. There's another squeak and something yellow and green pops its head out of the hole.
Alien gopher. It’s about as big as your entire servo.
Hound speaks up from behind you, “I’m pretty sure that's a green mining dog. You should try to apologize for scaring it bitty.”
An alien gopher is screaming at you. It appears to be quite angry that you stomped in his home. You try to back up and give it some space. It’s still screaming.
You rip up some grass and flowers and place it next to its home. It grabs it and hides in its hole. Then it pops back out again and screams at you.
Then you really back up and place yourself as flat as possible on the ground to look less frightening. You don’t know why you’re trying this hard to appease a green gopher, but it appears satisfied with your groveling. It hides in its hole only to pop out moments later again, but this time it pops out with a spotted rock.
Before you could grab it, Hound picks up the rock and inspects it before handing it back to you. “It just seems like a common pebble, but it seems like the mining dog appreciated your apology. Can you say thanks to the mining dog?”
Maybe it’s second nature to simply comply with a kind mech’s words. Maybe you got too caught up in the mind of being a bitlet. But for whatever reason, when Hound asked you to say your thanks, you actually do.
“Tanks dohg.”
It was staticy and the pronunciation wasn’t perfect, however the fact that you spoke was crystal clear. And aside from that one time the disk on your chassis beeped, you’ve never seen or felt these mechs move so quickly to you.
Perceptor began to mumble to himself before lifting his servo to his audials. While Hound picks you up and begins to sway around in circles, “Can you say… Hound! Can you say….grass! Can you say…”
This is about to be an ordeal. And all that planning of becoming a genius baby down the drain. You haven’t even mastered two syllables yet.
Hound continues to spin around and ask you to say things when Perceptor appears in front of him and stops his merry go round. Perceptor motions for Hound to hand you over. Which he does. “You probably should spin them like that. And the medics would like a scan on the bitty’s voicebox.”
“...Ah. I guess you’re right. Sorry I just got excited."
Perceptor sits down with you and Hound follows suit, “No need to apologize for excitement, we just don’t want to interfere with any scans.” Looking down at you, Perceptor thinks for a moment before asking, “... Can you say Percy?”
“What about tree!”
“Could you say micro?”
“Try saying dog again bitty! It was so cute the first time!”
Dear God, you are being reduced to a parrot. It’s going to be horrible when Rodimus finds out.
_______________________________________________________________
By this point, sitting in the medbay normally means peace and quiet. A stark difference from the recent uproar at swerve’s when word got out about your words. Ractchet had First Aid hold you while he held a large square hand held device to your throat area. Most likely scanning your voice box. Ratchet scans a couple times, and looks more and more confused each time he goes to look at the results.
Eventually First Aid speaks up, “Is there something wrong with the scanner?”
Ratchet looks at the scanner results, and then back to you. “… No. I don’t think so.”
“Then what is it?”
Ratchet holds the end of the scanner with results a short distance from First Aid’s face.
“Oh. Hm.” First Aid takes a moment to really stare at the results before Ratchet pulls back. All this is enough to make you nervous, is there something wrong with you? This is a routine check to track progress. Did you ruin your voice box already? Is it bad?
Hitching you higher to his chassis and looking at you, First Aid uses his other servo to tap you between your optics. “Have you been practicing talking when no one’s looking, or have we just been ignoring you?”
Oh. Guess they could tell that it’s had some use. That makes sense.
Ratchet writes down whatever information was on the scanner before pulling out a drawer and placing it there, “it’s the only reason why those readings were like that.”
First Aid hums while looking at you, “Could you say Aid?”
“No, try Medbay bitty.”
“What about medicine?”
“That’s a bit complicated ‘Aid.”
“Medbay isn’t easy either.”
This day is never going to end. Who said being a baby is easy?