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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 10, 2011 15:30:24 GMT -5
Month 1, Week 4, Day 3, open
There are still Noisy Crickets on the ship. They're worse than retrorats, harder to find, and certainly more dangerous. Sentinel Prime counts himself as one of the unfortunates sent scrambling around the air ducts, looking for the malevolent insectoids. Don't they have smaller bots who could be doing this? What in his dossier made it seem like he was qualified for this task?
Perhaps the fact that he's just so amazing at everything. It must be that.
Sentinel Prime supposes it is a disgrace to serve on a vermin-infest ship, and in doing this duty he is only restoring his own honour. He draws little comfort from his own conciliations, however.
Suddenly, there's a rattling chirp that makes the whole duct shudder, and Sentinel Prime scrambles, even as the sonic energy painfully vibrates his struts. He sees the cricket out of the corner of his optics and reaches for it with a flailing lunge of one hand. Sentinel Prime grasps nothing but air as the cricket leaps away. Sentinel Prime mutters, low and dire, "Slagging crickets."
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Mar 10, 2011 20:52:32 GMT -5
Before the cricket can get around the corner of the upcoming intersection, a harpoon shoots out from the opposite pathway, striking the thing directly and, given how small it is, destroying it completely.
The harpoon is reeled back in, and moments later Impactor crawls into view, scowling.
"I don't think that's the last of the blasted things, either," his gruff voice rumbles.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 10, 2011 23:01:30 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime makes an entirely undignified squeaking noise when a harpoon suddenly annihilates the cricket out of the blue. He scrambled back, back arched against the air duct wall, optics wide. Oh please, oh AllSpark, Sentinel Prime is much too young and too handsome to be killed by a marauding ghost, and besides, he's never actually-
He smacks his forehead with his hand when he realises it is 'just' Impactor, if a walking (crawling, at the moment) dead commando can be said to be 'just' anything. Sentinel Prime wipes his hand down his face to cover his mouth as he recovers from his fright and then drops it down to his side, flopping over on his belly again to get back to the cricket hunt.
Composed enough for words again, Sentinel Prime admits, "That is quite fine pointwork."
Using just the point of a weapon is an unusual thing in Transformers, and it bears commenting. Most bladed weapons, while usually sharpened to a point, are used primarily as slashing weapons, not as piercing weapons.
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Mar 11, 2011 21:49:07 GMT -5
Impactor nods. Yes. He knows he's good at this.
"You take something out the first hit, there's less of a chance of it getting back up and taking you out. Or a buddy," is all he has by way of explanation. If you survive enough to lose enough buddies, you start learning to make the kill first, if only to keep from losing more. And the brain module is a very small target, obscured in the relatively large area of the head.
"I remember hearing something about unexplained damage down at the K junction. Thinking maybe that might be one of them?" Impactor picks the pathway that would lead him in that direction and starts to crawl that way. Pointing out where he was going is the closest that Sentinel is going to hear to, 'Care to work together?'
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 11, 2011 22:33:50 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime makes a face. He can't blame Impactor for a one shot, one kill philosophy. It's practical enough for a soldier, it's just... learning about killing and talking about killing and teaching about killing is different than actually doing killing, especially if the victims in question are clearly members of his own species with whom he has no particular quarrel, aside from the fact of their faction. Killing a Sharkticon is one thing, killing maybe Blackarachnia while completely torqued off is one thing, but if he had to end that Seeker in cold fuel, he -
No, Impactor's right. It doesn't matter. Giving the enemy the opportunity to live and kill again is just as bad as killing one's own friends oneself. That's how a proper soldier should think, and dead despite he is, Impactor's definitely the picture of a proper soldier, making an exception for the peculiarity that so many Autobots here freely use conventional ranged weapons.
Sentinel Prime's just going to follow Impactor on the logic that any marauding crickets will get Impactor first. He speculates aloud, "I hope they can't replicate. You don't think they can, do you?"
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Mar 13, 2011 18:37:47 GMT -5
Impactor has a hard time thinking of himself as "proper" anything, but truthfully, Sentinel's probably right on that count.
He grunts at Sentinel's question.
"Got no idea, and when I don't have an idea about something, I assume the worse. If they do, though, they don't reproduce quickly, else we'd be swimming in them. Also, I haven't heard anything about any numbers coming up wrong in our inventories or parts of the ship going missing. They'd need a source of materials."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 13, 2011 19:15:21 GMT -5
"Unless they're hiding between the bulkheads, drawing energon from subspace and converting it into matter..." Sentinel Prime speculates paranoidly. He taps at the side of an air duct nervously, listening to the sound. No, it doesn't sound like the walls are full of seething masses of crickets. Perhaps they are very quiet crickets...
Not terribly creative, Sentinel Prime latches onto the less-terrifying part of the conversation, "So you read those kind of reports?"
Could someone else possibly be as tailpipe-retentive about reading every single report one's security clearance grants?
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Mar 14, 2011 9:18:58 GMT -5
Impactor grunts. "Seems I'm stuck in medical more these days," he growls. "Figure I may as well do something useful with the time."
Impactor tends to keep himself as up to date on intelligence reports as time allows, anyway, but if time allows much more, Impactor's going to go stir crazy.
As they come to another intersection, this one with a downward leading duct, he comes to a stop and holds up his harpoon, gesturing for silence. After a few moments, a screech can be heard from below.
Impactor twists to lean against one wall and starts to remove his harpoon. "Up for a climb?" he asks, replacing it with his right hand.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 14, 2011 10:25:42 GMT -5
If, a year ago, someone had told Sentinel Prime that he'd be feeling faint stirrings of hero-worship for a zombie with a shoulder cannon, he would have told that someone s/he was crazy in no uncertain terms. Right now, Sentinel Prime is not certain he's not crazy.
But Impactor reads all the banal and inane reports! Be still, his beating fuel pump.
Sentinel Prime looks down and realises he's clasped his hands together. He makes a face and unclasps them, glad that Impactor is distracted by the hideous screeching of the damned crickets. Sentinel Prime is quiet. When he's not being a stubborn son of Daisy Etta who thinks he knows better, he's good at following orders. He likes following orders. Orders keep society from disintegrating into anarchist chaos.
There's just a shade of someone pathetically eager to please, just a hint buried under the permeating arrogance, in his quick answer of, "Can I climb? Can I ever! I was one of the best in my class at climbing the flagpole."
Optimus was probably better, because Optimus always had the best scores in everything, but second isn't... bad... okay, second is the same thing as last, but he doesn't have to admit that to Impactor.
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Mar 14, 2011 13:17:37 GMT -5
Impactor finishes clicking his hand into place and eyes Sentinel warily as the other more or less reminds the commando that he has no significant combat experience. 'Best in class'?
Classes? Must be nice.
All he says, however, is "Right." Then he's down the vent. As wide as Impactor is compared with the vents, he's able to move down fairly quickly by bracing himself against opposite walls and have climbing, half sliding down. There actually is a ladder, but for the first level, he bypasses that to opt for speed. It's only as he nears the bottom that he slows his progress, grabbing onto one of the rungs and pausing to see how Sentinel is holding up.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 14, 2011 13:47:29 GMT -5
Cricket-hunting may be undignified work and beneath Sentinel Prime, he who once man-hunted instead, but he refuses to make a poor showing of it! Sentinel Prime returns Impactor's wary look with an upturned nose. Sentinel Prime is Elite Guard, slaggit! He is not a wet-audio, fresh-paint liability! Don't give him that dubious look!
Sentinel Prime grabs for the ladder, to climb down properly, as is the normal convention, but when he sees that Impactor is, to Sentinel Prime's optics, show-boating, Sentinel Prime just can't let that stand. It's a stupid vent. He can get down a stupid vent quicker than climbing a ladder!
Sentinel Prime lets go of the ladder and falls, grabbing the ladder again before he hits the bottom or Impactor. It wrenches his shoulders just a bit, but there's no damage. Sentinel Prime is, after all, designed heavy duty tough, built for endless transform-ups, not like a frail maintenance-bot.
Whee, that was - okay, he's just going to wipe that stupid grin off his face and get back to the deadly serious mission of hunting crickets.
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Mar 14, 2011 19:10:23 GMT -5
Sentinel may view it as show-boating, but to Impactor, it is simply, 'more efficient way to get down the vent.'
Once he's made certain that Sentinel has kept up, making no reactions to Sentinel's own method of getting down the duct, he lets himself down that last bit, landing surprisingly light on the metal floor. He immediately starts to remove his right hand as he begins creeping down the duct, now and again pausing. When the thing chirps, however, he moves faster, taking advantage of the cover the noise provides.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 14, 2011 20:18:35 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime is just a tad insecure behind the bravado and a bit paranoid and will see show-boating where there is no show-boating in reality. He has no trouble keeping up, anyway. Sentinel Prime's a young, fit Autobot whose general build lends him towards physical exertion.
He's a bit louder than Impactor in landing, though. Still, Sentinel Prime doesn't break the quiet as Impactor stalks the cricket. He's not sure he wants to see what Impactor will do to him if he is too noisy. Quite often, Sentinel Prime does look back and off to the side, to any cross-tunnels, making sure that they aren't being flanked by any sneaky crickets.
What if they have a hive mind and self-replicate and get smarter with every added cricket...
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Mar 15, 2011 18:52:48 GMT -5
The cricket is not yet in sight. It must be around one of the turns up ahead. In front of them, visible, there's nothing besides a whole mess of empty ductwork.
Empty ductwork that's suddenly no longer empty.
Without warning, several panels on the floor open up and blasters mounted on tripods pop up and turn towards the Autobots.
"Down!!" Impactor shouts, knocking Sentinel Prime to floor just as they begin to fire.
OOC: Posing of Sentinel done with player permission.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Mar 15, 2011 20:26:07 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime is a bit annoyed to be babied and a bit annoyed at just how often haywire Autobot defense turrets seem to feature in his life. Just after Impactor knocks them down and flat against the floor, he gets his shield up and cast over the both of them - but they're under the turrets' range of fire, anyway, so the shield is pointless.
Aside from the fact that having a forcefield means he can just crawl over to the turrets and yank out their power cords.
That done, Sentinel Prime looks back and calls, "Should have told you - a forcefield is one of my standard mods! Never leave the barracks without it."
Of course Impactor should know that. Impactor reads all the banal reports. So Impactor decided to tackle a laser-proof Autobot down anyway. Sentinel Prime's not sure whether to feel offended or flattered.
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