Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on Jun 3, 2007 18:11:39 GMT -5
"Did anyone experience anything as they shifted? A sense of movement, any sudden flashes?"
"I did not--I was in the middle of a battle, being shot at, then the next thing I know I woke up here, as if from a deep defrag or stasis lock," Dead End said in response to Starscream's question. "Anything beyond that is merely idle speculation."
Dead End drove over to Hook and waited for Hook to load whatever components he deemed vital into his trunk.
"I don't see any significant acid etching, or, indeed, excess corroding on the metal," Fleetwind observed in answer to Dead End's fears, and then pointed out towards the grass. "And I doubt that soft material would survive strong acids long at all. Acid rainstorms in this area don't appear to be a very high likelihood, although I don't really have any experience with non-metallic worlds."
"Oh, good. Someone is paying attention to local conditions! I admit, if this planet is like Earth, and it is more like Earth than Cybertron, they probably don't have acid rain. Though you would be surprised what unpleasantness organics can survive if they are designed to do so. They thrive in environments that would corrode you or I to little piles of rust within a few years... instead of the millions of years one might avoid the inevitable in a sheltered area of Cybertron."
"Speaking of which... Hook, when you were going through the vehicle bays, did you find whatever they used for metal polishing and waxing around here? My supply won't hold out indefinitely."
Dead End agrees with the need for defrag, since it was his watch that was so rudely interrupted by the tank.
OOC: Yes, do timeskip.
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Starscream
Major
"Sometimes I can almost feel it!"
strangely enough, male.
Posts: 945
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Post by Starscream on Jun 3, 2007 18:31:59 GMT -5
"All right then." Starscream replied as he turned his broadband channel radio off in disgust. "We begin defrag cycles in shifts. Perhaps after some processing of this knowledge we can work out what exactly has happened to us." Starscream DOESN'T add 'and how we can get home' to that statement. He's looking at this world with no Megatron--assuming there is an adequate source of power and raw materials for processing, there's no reason not to stick around.
OOC: Timeskip ahoy!
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Post by Hook on Jun 3, 2007 19:51:18 GMT -5
"I'll finish ransacking this place in the morning, make the modifications for an acceptable supply caravan, and stow the chargers. If I'm feeling especially wonderful, I'll figure out where we should go from here." Hook got rather snappish when he got fragmented.
The components Hook picked out to definitely keep get packed into Dead End's trunk, and then he directed Dead End and Fleetwind to stow the parts in the garage.
Then Hook found an open space and transformed into crane-mode. "Work out the watch-rotation as you like. I am going to defragment. Dead End, you as well."
And so he did. When he awoke again, he dispatched Starfighter and Starscream to the sweet embrace of Hypnos. Then Fleetwind and Skystrike.
While others defragmented, Hook scoured for supplies in the station, sorted through what he found, stored what he could in other people's storage compartments (not subspace, as he explained, because they did want room for anything more they might find), and started the process of turning the wheeled vehicles he had drained of power into something resembling wagons.
And, as the night wore on towards morning, he got rained upon. This did not thrill him in the slightest.
Dawn came grey and drizzly.
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Jun 4, 2007 0:58:43 GMT -5
Slowly, Cannonball's systems booted up, optic cluster coming to life in a dull purple glow. His hand clutched his head, sitting up. He was in a field of grass. Dull-looking grass. Last he could recall, he was aboard his pride and joy, the Sea Slag, counting up his crew's most recent haul off of some planet's capital city. And now, he's...somewhere else. Somewhere flat. Staggering up, the pirate looked about, finding there to be no one else around for a good while, at least, as far as his sensors could reach. "Ach, Unicron's beard...I musta been abandoned...or mutinied against" he mumbled to himself, scowling. He crouches, and leaps into the air, taking off to get a general view of the area, and firing up his comm system. Comm post.
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Post by Skystrike/Skylar Stringers on Jun 4, 2007 12:16:06 GMT -5
Skystrike’s optics flickered online abruptly. The sensation of some kind of liquid streaming down her optic coverings was what had jolted her awake. For a brief moment, the jet stared in mild fascination at the sight of a liquid, clean oil-like substance trickle down her vision. Tiny pinpricks of transparent fluid had gathered on the leading edge of her helm, glittering even in the dull light of the alien planet’s dawn.
All around her, it was raining and…
Raining.
Skystrike abruptly stood up causing rainwater that’d gathered on her over the night to splash to the wet ground in a shower of foamy white. As the loud hiss of disturbed water faded away, the jet flapped her wings and twitched her ailerons experimentally carefully inspecting her hands, chest, feet before uttering a soft sigh of relief. All there. Still, something was off though.
The blue jet peered up at the sky wiping the droplets off her face and it was only then that she realized what was wrong. She frowned momentarily at the tiny drops of water that appeared to be floating in the air in front of her before shaking her head and looking about as she readjusted the calibration of her visual sensors.
As things returned to a more or less normal pace, Skystrike looked around, taking note of the rest of the team’s location. Her sharp optics caught sight of a distant silhouetted rising up from the distant grass, too angular to be any kind of bird and the shape was unfamiliar. Narrowing her optics slightly, she stayed close to the building she’d been sleeping by glancing around for any other potential covers before ducking down and making her way over to the garage where she’d spotted Hook.
Sure enough the newcomer’s voice resounded over the radio a second later.
“Well, there’s another one,” the flier murmured in greeting to the crane as she came to a stop some ways away from the pile pieces that she was pretty sure used to be part of the vehicles. She made sure not to touch anything. “Need any help?” Skystrike never liked being idle for too long. Especially now that she’d just defragged accompanied by the fact that the energon she’d consumed last night was barely used up, she was, needless to say, quite a little hyped.
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Post by Starfighter on Jun 4, 2007 14:33:37 GMT -5
For the second time in that planet's day, Starfighter regained consciousness with his face planted firmly in the ground. He'd been leaning against the wall of the garage when he went into his defrag cycle, but the grime on his back had mixed with the rainwater and sent him slipping down to the ground like a greased shovel on a wet shed.
...not that Starfighter knew anything of greased shovels on wet sheds, but the principle was the same.
"Are we under--" The tetrajet shook his head and took another look at his surroundings. Still peaceful, and yet there was something odd coming out of the sky. Not an acid rain attack; more like a solvent shower but minus the solvent. It was almost pleasant, really.
"There's water coming out of the sky," he said to himself thoughtfully as he looked at his arm, watching the clear liquid run down it with a mild sense of wonder. He knew how rain naturally occurred on Earth, with fluid evaporating from water reservoirs into clouds and then falling back to the ground in a gentle cycle designed to keep the organic life functioning and so on, but it was quite another thing to see it for himself.
"The rain's not a bad thing, is it?" he asked Skystrike as he scrambled to his feet. "I mean, it isn't going to rust us out or cause body erosion or anything like that, right?"
Starfighter sincerely hoped his datapad was waterproof.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on Jun 4, 2007 14:49:47 GMT -5
"Not if you're properly maintained," Fleetwind answered casually. He had already awakened from defrag and had taken over communications. Mostly because either a contest for leadership or a lack of co-operation threatened his well-being, and things had gotten to the point where he was willing to take matters into his own hands. The pastel wonder stood on top of the roof of one of the buildings that made up the service station, and steadily watched the area of the sky that the unidentified newcomer occupied.
"Even ordinary paint is a protectant. We will eventually have to find some way to synthesize more, however." And by "we," Fleetwind meant "someone who knew how."
Fleetwind himself may have had little enough experience off of Cybertron, but he tended to devote a remarkable amount of time studying up on things that had the potential to hurt him, to improve his ability to judge the risks and dangers of assorted situations.
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on Jun 4, 2007 16:35:36 GMT -5
Dead End came out of defrag to find rain pouring down outside the vehicle hangar he'd tucked himself into. The Stunticon decided that the thing to do with all that rain was to watch it from his nice, dry cubbyhole.
The hail over the Decepticon comm channel caught his attention briefly. "Oh, joy. Another lunatic from who knows when or where. It just couldn't be Breakdown or Wildrider... or even Drag Strip, could it." Dead End is as sullen as the weather outside.
Private to Starfighter: // I don't suppose you have a record of this lunatic 'Cannonball', do you? //
Not only were his brothers missing, fewer of the newcomers were people he knew. Only Hook and Starscream, though the other Seekers were at least from his Cybertron. Why were they here? What was the point? Was there a point?
It was probably as pointless as the endless War. They'd just die here instead of on Cybertron. Joy. He should have just stayed in defrag.
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Starscream
Major
"Sometimes I can almost feel it!"
strangely enough, male.
Posts: 945
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Post by Starscream on Jun 5, 2007 1:30:06 GMT -5
As Starscream's systems warm-started themselves, his radio automatically turned itself on.
"All right then, I hope everyone is well-rested," Starscream says in that way he has that means he really couldn't care HOW well their defrag cycles fared. "In light of the new information about the Constructicons, first matter of business for today is to establish a reliable source of energon and spare parts. Did anyone find anything resembling an airfield or hangar? Or a power station?"
To Hook, he turned, his optics darting curiously to the pile of salvage he has been sorting through. "What do we have, Hook, and what do we need? I'm assuming you have a basic repair kit. What about basic parts and circuit boards?"
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Post by Hook on Jun 5, 2007 6:42:29 GMT -5
"We have adequate supplies for repairs." In fact, he could probably build several more Seekers from the supplies available to him. However, the fact that it is only several more limits his supplies to merely 'adequate'.
"I triangulated the approximate position of the power station beaming to the satellite which is beaming power to our dish, give or take several kilometers. At the moment, about all that is relevent about it is that it is east of us. If we enabled it, it would likely provide power to anywhere on this landmass we would like to go. Additionally, it likely also has some sort of generators itself, so it would serve the purpose of providing us with energon."
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Jun 5, 2007 15:51:39 GMT -5
After a fair bit of communicating with Fleetwind over broadband, Cannonball changed his direction, taking a turn for the east.
Shortly, he caught sight of the buildings ahead, swooping in low. Once he was closer, he dropped to his feet on the building that Fleetwind was perched on, tilting his head as he looked the pastel wonder over.
"I be lookin' fer th' one they call Fleetwind, laddie. Be ye him, or do ye know whar he moit be?"
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Post by Skystrike/Skylar Stringers on Jun 6, 2007 6:27:57 GMT -5
Skystrike’s attention was turned to Starfighter at his mutter and for a brief moment she had the oddest look on her face as she watched the other jet just half-lay there on the dirty tarmac for a moment. A sense of disturbing familiarity seemed to settle on her, but she quickly shook it off.
"The rain's not a bad thing, is it? I mean, it isn't going to rust us out or cause body erosion or anything like that, right?"
She idly listened to Fleetwind reply before flicking her ailerons in shrug, “It’ll rust you if you don’t keep dry, from what I hear. I wouldn’t know.” She’d only been in the rain once before, on earth before she was sent back to Cybertron. “Guess it’s just a matter of keeping your joints dry…” Skytrike trailed off, distantly listening to Dead End mutter to himself, something about a lunatic and a person named ‘Drag Strip’ if she heard correctly. Of course she wasn’t paying too much attention because the next moment, her optics were drawn skywards once again at spot where she’d seen the newcomer.
"All right then, I hope everyone is well-rested. In light of the new information about the Constructicons, first matter of business for today is to establish a reliable source of energon and spare parts. Did anyone find anything resembling an airfield or hangar? Or a power station?"
Her wings twitched in slight irritation at the sound of Starscream’s voice, but she answered in between keeping track of the radio conversations, carefully keeping any irritation out of her tone of voice, “I’m afraid not, I haven’t exactly been scouting since we came here. Was busy with trying to figure out what was going on and taking care of that tank.”
"I triangulated the approximate position of the power station beaming to the satellite which is beaming power to our dish, give or take several kilometers. At the moment, about all that is relevent about it is that it is east of us. If we enabled it, it would likely provide power to anywhere on this landmass we would like to go. Additionally, it likely also has some sort of generators itself, so it would serve the purpose of providing us with energon."
“So now we just have to worry about taking control of it before the Autobots do, assuming that it can be controlled from the ground.” She usually wasn’t the kind of person to worry particularly about the Autobots. Autobots weren’t the only people who tried to steal energon on Cybertron after all, in fact, they were a bit more of the minority. The people who stole energon were usually those without a faction, or gang members. Who knew? Maybe the situation wouldn’t be so different here, the difference was that this planet was a fresh new resource and with cities all over the place, it shouldn’t be too difficult to attain some energon if one knew how. There shouldn’t be too many conflicts just yet.
At the sight of an unfamiliar purple and orange mech landing in front of Fleetwind, her musings quickly ended. For a brief moment, she tensed, her guns powering up silently as she listened to him speak.
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Post by Starfighter on Jun 6, 2007 8:11:31 GMT -5
Starfighter openly boggled at the new mech. He'd seen some strange paint jobs in his time, but the colors plus the accent just pushed it over the edge into bizarre.
"Cannonball. Right." He hurriedly buried his face in his datapad, typing a bit slower than he really needed to and concealing most of his face. Even when the new mech wasn't looking at him, there was still something vaguely threatening about his...loudness.
Private, to Dead End: //No, sir, nothing on him in any of the databases and I looked up his paintjob and altmode as well as his name. Sounds like we have another crazy on our hands, but at least this one isn't threatening anyone.//
Yet.
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Fleetwind
Major
The Chancellor, His Eminent Grandeur, Marquis Fleetwind. The Insurgent Subduer of A Non-Threatening Cute Little Furry Kitten
Twined Elf
Posts: 730
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Post by Fleetwind on Jun 6, 2007 8:46:15 GMT -5
"Sir, I passed over a couple of cities and one or two other likely areas of resources on my way here," Fleetwind reported in answer to Starscream's question, "but Hook's suggestion that we find the power beaming station seems our best bet." Besides, retracing Fleetwind's path would have likely taken the group closer to Omega Supreme, which they didn't quite seem ready for yet.
And then the stranger he had been communicating to landed beside him on the station roof-top. He instinctively shunted power to his arm weapons, but made no outwardly threatening move. Mentally, he was alert for attack, but physically he put on a friendly smile of welcome for what he hoped would be a new ally. "Ah, another ground-vehicle. Excellent," he observed, attempting to lull the other by implying that ones of his type were just what the group needed (although, indeed, he would be useful).
"Yes, I'm Fleetwind." Then he gestured to other robots who were on the ground. First he indicated a robot that looked almost exactly like himself, except for the other robot was red and light grey and blue. "That would be Starscream, our leader." Then he pointed to a robot that looked very similar to him, but blue and more angular, with more up-swept wings. "That's Skystrike." Then he pointed to a paler blue robot that also, otherwise, looked just like him. "And that's Starfighter." Fleetwind really didn't expect the other to keep them straight; people new to the Seeker build never could.
Then he indicated the lime green mech with crane bits. "That's Hook," and pointing once more, "and that's Dead End." Fleetwind dipped his head in polite greeting once the introductions were out of the way. "Welcome, Cannonball. Starscream was just about to choose our next course of action. If you've spotted anything useful on the way over, now would be the time to add your input."
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on Jun 6, 2007 14:39:39 GMT -5
Dead End had gotten into one of those moods. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing for him to do, and the rest of them were chattering meaninglessly like so many teletypes gone amuck. No point in wasting energy moving until he had to.
Dead End dug through his auxiliary data store to see what he had to read. He wasn't quite in the mood for Smith... Perhaps Lovecraft? Yes, he'd see how far he could get in "At the Mountains of Madness" before either (a) Starscream or Hook strongly demanded he do something, or (b) any actual menace appeared in the story. It was a toss-up what would happen first--Starscream or Shoggoth?
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