Chapter Text
~[LOCATION: MOTHER SKELD]~
The pink crewmate slowly awoken, her eye fluttering open, eyes adjusting to the bright light of her room.
She groaned, rolling onto her side.
“What time is it?...” She croaked, pushing the side of her pillow out of the way to check her bedside table’s clock.
8:49 AM.
She groaned again, slapping a hand onto her face.
But either way, she pushed through, she pushed herself into a sit, legs dangling off the side of the bed, hands clutching at the sheets beside her.
Then,
Twitch.
The lid of the room’s vent twitched upwards slightly
The pink crewmate’s stomach dropped.
She immediately pushed herself out of bed as a figure emerged from the vent, only their top half at first.
“Hey! Hey! Relax!” The figure exclaimed, The Pink Crewmate stopped searching her backpack for her megaphone.
The cyan crewmate in the vent coughed, patting himself down.
“Hi, I’m so sorry to freak you out, uhm, my name’s Simon, I’m an engineer, and I was in the vents because I was sent to repair a small issue, buuuut…” Simon spoke, pushing himself out of the vent
“The ventilation gear that should normally keep the air I breathe clean got clogged somehow and I had to get out as fast as I could, I’m gonna go visit the tailor and mechanic to figure out what actually happened, could you fill in for me?” Simon asked the pink crewmate as he handed her his tablet
“Wha- I’m not a mechanic!” She exclaimed
“Oh, no! I just meant check the condition of the vents and report to Mira if they get into a critical condition before I get back.” Simon clarified
“Oh,”
“I guess I could.”
“Great, thank you so much.” Simon began to leave, but before he got too far away, he turned back to the pink crewmate.
“What’s your name, by the way?”
“Oh, uhm, Samantha, but you can just call me Sam.” She replied, Simon nodded, giving her a thumb up
“Nice to meet you, Sam.” He finished before bolting out.
Sam exhaled the moment Simon was out, sitting back down on her bed.
“Not a chance that guy’s an impostor.” She told herself.
She then opened a drawer on her bedside table, taking a small, thin, rectangle-like device from it, staring at it.
A pregnancy test.
Positive.
Sam drops the test to her side, planting her face in her palms.
She was only twenty, too young to have a kid. She didn’t want that responsibility.
She didn’t look the part yet, her belly was about as flat as normal.
She wanted to cry, she tried, but no tears came.
The worst part? She could’ve sworn he used condoms.
She’s only had proper sex once in her life, so she knows exactly who the father was, but he told her he had condoms, he even showed her when he put it on, so how did this happen?
Maybe he poked a hole in it? Who knows.
Not her, not now.
She could’ve brought her own.
But she didn’t.
And now she was carrying a developing fetus.
Fuck. She thought.
That was the only word she could think.
Sam found herself in Mother Skeld’s biggest and most publicly available park. Sitting on a bench, just, looking at the… ground?… floor?...
Whatever.
An olive crewmate sat themselves besides Sam, she kept her glance on the floor for a moment, before looking up to him.
Adam; probably Sam’s closest friend on this entire damn station.
Station might be an understatement, Mother Skeld was massive, if you were to hollow it out it could fit probably 240 standard-grade Skeld Turtleships just inside the main body, that doesn’t even include the tail, fins, and other exterior parts of the ‘station’.
Mother Skeld has everything you need for life inside it; grocery stores, gyms, residences, parks, even flowing water. Among so much more.
Of course, though, when you make a station this massive, it does come with its drawbacks, two of those being that it is incredibly expensive to fund (luckily Mira is backed by the governments of both Canada and USA) and the fact that maintenance teams never catch a break. If one position of workers here had the most employees, it would hands-down be the maintenance workers; over 120 thousand maintenance workers alone. And if that wasn’t enough.
They’re planning to finish a second Mother Skeld by 2068, they’re gonna call it ‘Father Skeld’, fittingly.
“You okay?” Adam asked
“Wha?” Sam replied
“Are you doing alright? You seem distant.” Adam shuffled closer to Sam, placing a hand on hers.
“Oh, uh, yeah.”
Silence.
“Not really.”
“Figured as much.”
“I’m going through a lot of emotions right now.” Sam quivered
“What happened?”
Sam placed her palms over her face, unshed tears staining her eye.
“I’m pregnant!” Sam broke, she couldn’t hold the tears in so they just, all came out, at once. She choked on air as salty tears dropped to the artificial turf below.
Adam pat Sam’s back, shuffling closer to her one more time to comfort her.
“Look, Sam, I’m not one to give advice on how you should handle a pregnancy, it’s not my strongsuit.”
“But I know that whatever choice you make will be okay.”
“I understand this is a lot for someone to go through, especially so young. But Sam,” Adam gently lifted Sam’s face so her gaze met his.
“You’re strong.”
“You’ve made it through so many terrible things and, because of it, you got better.”
“You’re a fighter, Sam.”
“No matter what comes your way, you fight through it and come out on top.”
“That’s something a lot of people I know fail to do.”
“You may not always finish in first place, but you definitely land on the podium.”
Sam wiped her tears with the base of her palm, but more came to stain the areas she tried to clean.
“Wise words from a wise man.” She said after catching her breath.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Adam replied.
“I’m just a good observer.”
“ATTENTION ALL CREWMATES ABOARD MOTHER SKELD. A SKELD TURTLESHIP CARRYING NEW ARRIVALS WILL BE DOCKING SHORTLY. ALL CREWMATES INTERESTED IN GREETING THE ARRIVALS MAY PROCEED TO DOCK TWENTY-FOUR.” An announcement boomed throughout the area, startling Sam, she immediately stopped crying out of sheer unexpected fear.
Adam chuckled. “That was all it took?” He quipped
“Shut up!” Sam retaliated with a light slap.
“Okay, okay, in all seriousness,” Adam calmed down
“I’d suggest checking with Dr. Sanitäterin for a bit more expert advice, I’m just your average gay dude, not someone who should be at all responsible for telling you what to do when you’re carrying a fetus.” Adam suggested, Sam then gained a look of slight frustration.
“Y’know you can just call her Dr. San or Dr. Sani, right?” Sam asked, Adam always called Mira’s best doctor by her full last name.
“Oh, it’s fine! Makes me sound smarter.” Adam quipped again, Sam scoffed
“For knowing someone’s last name?”
“I know a lot of last names.”
“Alright dude, whatever.” Sam replied, standing from the bench.
“Well, thanks for the talk, gaybo.” She finished, heading out of the park, Adam snorted and waved to Sam as she left.
Then, a grey ‘crewmate’ popped up from behind the bench; Bran, Adam’s Cambio boyfriend.
Bran held a condom gently between his teeth, wiggling his eyebrow at Adam, Adam responded with a hard blush.
Sam, after a long tram ride and a longer walk the rest of the way, finally entered the clinic’s foyer, passing through into the reception room.
“Hi, yeah, I’d like an appointment with Dr. Sani.” Sam told the receptionist, the receptionist nodded without a word, typing something in on the computer.
Sam then found a seat in a spot where it was away from the strangers in this place, but also not too far to seem awkward.
Then she played the waiting game.
Luckily, it was a quick game, as a grey crewmate dressed in your typical doctor/medic’s gear entered the room, she was old, probably mid-sixties, but was as polite as ever.
She wore a strong german accent proudly, despite living among americans and canadians, it somehow never wore.
“Ah! Sam! It’s good to see you again.” Sani softly exclaimed as she gestured for Sam to approach. Sam obliged.
“I know you don’t like your waiting, so I’ll cut right to the chase, come with me.”
The two passed by several closed medical rooms and curtains until reaching an empty room, Sani politely gestured for Sam to enter first, she did so with a polite raise of the hand that said ‘thank you.’
“So! What brings you here today, Sam?” Sani questioned, dropping down onto the office chair in the room and rolling over to the desk in the corner.
“Yeah, uhm,” Sam started, looking to the floor, this wasn’t any easier than at the park.
But she explained everything. She explained it from her first… “session” and to the current day.
“So… Now I’m here.” Sam spoke softly.
“Alright,” Sani nodded.
“Thank you so much for telling me so soon, you have no idea how many people wait out of fear, or uncertainty, you did the first right step.”
“May I ask, could I do an ultrasound scan and a few other scans to just double check that ze test did not malfunction?” She asked, Sam sat for a moment, before nodding.
“Thank you.” Sani nodded back.
Then came the tests.
6 different tests.
The day after, The two were in the same room again.
“Okay, so, I have news, and some bad news.” Sani spoke, Sam was confused.
“You are pregnant, the ultrasound scan made zhat abundantly clear, but,” She turned to her computer, pulling up a google doc.
“What’s that?”
“Research,”
“Sam, I don’t know what happened, but your body is changing in ways zhat I do not understand.” She spoke, that worried Sam.
“How?”
“It’s hard to explain, so in simple terms…”
“Your body’s physical structure is being altered by… something. Your neurons and nervous system seems… unaffected, but your physical body; your muscles, bones, skin, they’re… Changing.”
“I believe your DNA, at least to your outwards appearance and biology, is being rewritten.”
“What?!” Sam exclaimed.
“I need you to be honest, Sam,” Sani sighed, pinching just below her eye.
“Have you made contact with anything alien or anomalous?”
“What?”
“Sam, zhis has never happened before to any of my patients.”
“I…” Sam stuttered.
“If I’m gonna be honest,” She said
“All I can think of is that.. My…” Sam trailed off, having trouble speaking.
“My boyfriend is a member of the Cambio species.”
“Oh.” Sani said simply.
“Oh mein gott, Sam.”
“What?”
“I have a feeling I know exactly what’s happening.”
“Tell me!”
Sani inhaled, before typing something on her computer and opening two tabs right next to each other. Showing cutouts of two crewmates with WILDLY different biology, Sani gestured Sam over.
“Ze image on ze left is a crewmate, a human, ze image on the right is a cambio disguised as a crewmate.” Sani noted.
“Naturally, humans and Cambio are not sexually compatible.”
“So?”
“So, when a male cambio orgasms into a human female to impregnate her, ze sperm carries very, very tiny cells zhat essentially tell the brain to change the bodily structure of the female to something compatible with the cambio’s sperm. Once zhis process is completed, ze egg and sperm will undergo ze fertilization process, so a baby can be made.”
“Zhat is where my knowledge ends.”
“I do not know how you will look when zhis transformation process is completed, but your body will change at the same rate as the fetus, by the time zhis… ‘transformation’ is complete, you will be soon to enter labor.”
“Ze good news is zhat once zhis transformation finishes, you will be able to have as much intercourse with your partner as you desire without additional side-effects.”
Sam was speechless.
“Zhis process is not able to be spread via any means. So you can interact with your friends all you want without risk of contamination, but you will change.”
“I understand zhis is a lot to take in, but it is important to know that you will be okay.”
Sam just, sat there, staring at the base of a wall like something was there besides trims.
Then,
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”