Chapter Text
Ancillary 33 roused another of his clone brethren, Ancillary 45, whom had been slouched over his command deck console dedicated to the maintenance of the stasis pods of all of the hibernated ancillaries. 45's eyes flashed open, and he gulped air rather like something 33's memory identified as a fish. Behind 33, the other revived crew member clones clustered a school of confused swimmers. There were questions and concerns which swirled out of this tight knot of underlings.
"Where's Prime?"
"What are our orders?"
"What do we do?"
33 felt the panic which built a little more with each roused repeat of his / their selves ; his own, perhaps unique, disdain of the one which all of his others looked to ignited a need within his being.
"Prime is gone : we only have ourself."
The other--it was a composite being of the fear and need of twenty units--cowered and attempted to withdraw into one single entity ; the sole individual felt an odd mixture of compassion and disdain for his weak siblings.
"45, what's the stasis status?"
45 could, wanted dearly, to deal with exactly what he knew ; his albino fingers flew across the controls of his console ; his eyes registered the data signalled within the displays. His fear displaced by his duty, he dutifully stated, "Stasis parameters are all stable, sir!"
A part of 33's mind scolded him, "The new Prime, are you?" as another part, the larger part, consoled him with, "I've got to look out for all of me, don't we?" The other part snorted, but relented with any further retorts.
Shortly, the rest of the unconscious members of the crew had been returned to both consciousness and duty ; 33 took the command chair, and issued the order, "Stellar coordinates : where are we?"
He couldn't care less as to where Prime was ; he didn't yet feel confidant enough to convey that sentiment to the rest of him : there was probably plenty of time to establish that consideration amongst all of him.
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