on the wings of love we’ll fly

by BWizard

Summary:

The Fold gate was supposed to drop them off at Octavia. This is not Octavia. It’s some system called Preservation, and nobody here knows where Octavia is. And, oh yeah, this is probably a completely different universe, according to Zila, or else there’s time travel involved.

Murderbot is having a bad day. It just wanted to watch media with ART on Preservation station, and now it’s handling seven teenaged humans who are probably not even from this universe, according to ART.

Notes:

Rated teen for swears, I’m not sure if there’ll be violence but if so it’ll probably be about the canon level. Title from The Sorcerer.

For the Murderbot fans: a group of not-all-human teens who are part of the space UN military/peacekeeping force for their universe escape a battle in subspace by going through a gate to realspace in their malfunctioning ship, only to find themselves right outside the Preservation wormhole as ART (with MB aboard) heads towards Preservation. Things happen.

For the Aurora Cycle fans: the rip in the Fold doesn’t go to Octavia, it goes to another universe entirely, where a part-robot-part-human construct built for security would really just like to watch some space soap operas. Still, it, its humans, and its sapient ship best friend end up helping the squad out. Things happen.

Chapter 1: let us fly to a far off land (Cat)

With the scream of engines and the bone-jarring impact of reality hitting home, we're through, out into the welcoming colorscape of realspace.

Good news, we came through alive. And we're here.

Bad news, we're barely alive, and I have no clue where "here" is.

At the aux station, Auri gasps. "That's not Octavia. I know it isn't. This isn't Octavia."

"What do you mean it isn't Octavia?" Tyler snaps at Auri, even as he turns toward her.

"I mean this isn't the right planet," she replies.

"Well, we came through the gate right," I say. "I don't make mistakes, stowaway."

Tyler hums. "If you didn't make a mistake, and Auri's right that this isn't Octavia, could the map be wrong?"

"I would consider it unlikely, sir," Zila says. "Until a moment ago, our position was reading as just inside the Interdiction line. I can no longer see the Interdiction line. In fact, my scanners show no familiar landmarks at all.”

I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is mostly a pile of swear words.

Tyler takes a deep breath and holds it for a long time before looking around at us. “Alright, so if we’re not at Octavia, and we’re not in the Fold…”

I finish his sentence. “Then where the hell are we?”

“And where’s the Bellerophon?”

"We're still damaged," Fin adds. "Is now a good time to point that out? Cause I feel like now might be a good time to do something about it. Life support has less than 15 minutes left, by the way."

Zila's scanner beeps, and she looks up at Tyler. "Ship approaching. ETA five minutes seven seconds to intercept. Not registering as any known vessel configuration."

"Can you talk to them, Scar?" Tyler tugs at the chain around his neck.

Scarlett tosses her head. "Like you needed to ask, Bee-bro. Cat, bestie, open me a channel please?"

I click the buttons on my console and call up a wide-band broadcast. "You're up, roomie. Broadcasting on all known frequencies."

Notes:

First line is a quote from Aurora Rising, and that’s the exact moment at which the timeline diverges.