Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Jun 7, 2010 21:07:53 GMT -5
Whirligig moved quickly past Hellbender, too quickly for Hellbender to smash him down with a casual swipe of his head. If he wanted to take out the little guy now, he'd have to chase him. He started forward, then stopped--
They still didn't know what was going on up there. The Autobot was still useful as a scout and sacrificial anode. Hellbender could always take him out later, after he'd figured things out.
About then, Whirligig started singing on the radio, and Hellbender suddenly wished he'd acted with less restraint. It would have been good to have been Bonecrusher right then...
// Okay, that just ain't physically possible, Ah don't care how flexible your drill bit is! // Hellbender grumbled at some of the song lyrics.
|
|
|
Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Jun 8, 2010 20:46:56 GMT -5
//That's what she saaaaid!// Whirligig chimes back in a sing-song tone, before moving on to butcher another jaunty tune.
As he nears the far end of the tunnel, sounds echoing down the shaft break through the distraction that is his singing and he cuts off with a //Whu?//
Abandoning his examination of the tunnel - which seems stable enough, really - he creeps towards the exit, through which dim light is flickering. The sounds become clearer as he approaches: the strike of metal on rock, garbled echoes of voices... is that the sound of digging? He's not exactly used to hearing digging, what with most of his crew's mining operations being done in a vacuum.
Curiously, he peeks out of the little side tunnel into the open space beyond it. His optics widen at the sight. //Oh that is all kinds of not right.//
|
|
Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Jun 8, 2010 21:29:20 GMT -5
Whirligig's exclamation of surprise took Hellbender by surprise; he revved up his cutters and slithered forward. This tunnel was just barely wide enough; as he was, he knocked off some low-hanging bits of ceiling.
// What what? What's goin' on up there? // Hellbender didn't hear any shooting or explosions, so apparently no one was attacking the 'Bot. The steady 'dink-dink-dink' of multiple picks hitting rock in an irregular cacophony continued, like a hundred metal-jawed ants chewing into the coal seam. It was a disturbing sound--uncoordinated rhythms meant independent operators, life forms of some kind. In the deep tunnels of Cybertron, such life forms were predatory and very, very hungry.
|
|
|
Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Jun 9, 2010 22:19:14 GMT -5
//It's... a mining operation. A really shoddy mining operation.// For once Whirligig sounds serious and actually means it.
His optics narrow as he takes in the larger tunnel beyond. The dim light gleams off the sweat-soaked limbs and bodies of a number of aliens as they work away, listlessly digging at the tunnel's walls with picks and shovels. The grimy workers vary in size, from hunched-over hulks to people his own size - naturally small species or developing organics? - but none of them look in very good condition as best as he can judge.
Somewhere up the tunnel to his left he hears a sharp crack and someone crying out.
He slinks out of the side-tunnel, surprisingly camouflaged for someone usually bright orange, his jaunt in the coal dust-filled tunnels and subsequent explosion having left him quite covered in a coat of dark grime and soot.
|
|
Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Jun 10, 2010 20:29:16 GMT -5
The big mining worm slowly squeezed his way up the tunnels; at least once, he did have to stop and cut through shoring and wall, widening the passage. The howl and thunder of his cutters ripping out rock was anything but silent. Aware of the sudden rise in volume, he halted at the next such obstruction, and continued his conversation with Whirligig before making noise again.
// What kind of shoddy? What kind of tech are they using? Sounds like a pack of deep-tunnel cyber-swarmers up there, but Ah figure you'd a' mentioned it if they'd was and they et you. //
Of course, the explosion deep underground that the two Cybertronians had set off might have already caused some alarm--and made things even shakier up above. Not to mention the disturbingly unnatural sound made by Hellbender's cutters grinding rock that echoed around the tunnels, making it hard to pin down just where it came from.
|
|
|
Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Jun 11, 2010 11:44:04 GMT -5
Whirligig watches as the mineworkers glance around nervously as the distorted noises spread through the tunnel, some of them crying out, and some of the smaller ones actually beginning to cry - or continuing to cry, if old tear tracks on their grimy faces are any indication. As the noise cuts out, they all continue working despite their apparent stress.
The approaching whip-cracks and shouts of "Keep working!" might have something to do with that.
//Every kind of shoddy! Shoddy workers, shoddy conditions, shoddy tools. The only way they could be lower tech is if they were banging on the walls with rocks! Just... people with picks and shovels.//
Whirligig hovers near the entrance to the side tunnel, and while he may blend in a little, he's in no way hidden. If one of the workers were to look away from their work in his direction, or if someone were to come down the tunnel, he'd be spotted for sure.
OOC: Lemme know if you think I should tweak something. @_@
|
|
Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Jun 13, 2010 20:48:43 GMT -5
Hellbender started to rev up his cutters, then halted at this transmission from Whirligig; his processor was too busy churning through the anomalous information.
// Thet don't make no sense! This here world has got space travel; automated mining's way more efficient! Seriously! Ah mean... // Hellbender thought for a bit. // Well, you can get at the small veins that you'd have to crunch through a lot of waste rock to get otherwise, but individual units like that are pretty expensive to hire or maintain. Seriously, thet don't make no sense. //
It would make sense if the owners were Decepticons and the miner-bots were Empties or drones, but Hellbender wasn't telling the little Bot that. Might give too much away.
|
|
|
Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Jun 18, 2010 8:54:48 GMT -5
//Yeah? And as far as I'm concerned, mining is something you do with teams of trained professionals with decent equipment, but whoever is running this miserable excuse for diggin' operation apparently thinks throwing a pile of head-dead looking organics at it works just as well!//
Whirligig has to admit that he's getting progressively more irritated, though probably for all the wrong reasons. This is a disgrace to the honorable profession of mining!
//Slagging, no-good, rusted- oh hey.//
An alien has rounded a bend in tunnel, large and looking rather healthier than any of the workers digging at the walls. This alien also has some sort of gun slung over its shoulder, with a whip in one hand and a baton at its waist. The overseer cracks its whip in the air and all the workers cringe away. Whirligig freezes as the whip gets pointed in his direction.
"You!" The overseer cries. "Get back to wor- Wait a second."
"Uhh..."
"I don' remember having any workers under me what look like you. Who are you?!"
Whirligig's deer-in-headlights look isn't exactly fabricated. "I'm... lost," he says, trying to sound innocent. "Have you seen my mom-bot?"
//You just had to come up the tunnel, didn't you?// he sends to Hellbender. //You couldn't just stay put, could you?//
|
|
Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Jun 20, 2010 21:37:34 GMT -5
Underground, Hellbender's hearing was beyond acute--he listened to the very bedrock shift and murmur. Hearing loud-mouth mine overseers was a trivial exercise. So. They were using Empties, or the organic equivalent, with a Decepticon-like overseer. Hellbender felt a bit queer--it wasn't right, seeing organics act like Decepticons. He couldn't have offered a plausible argument as to why, but it still didn't seem right.
// The way you started carryin' on, sounded like there was a fight startin' up! Shouldna started yelling if you didn't want me comin' up. Now, Ah can be either your large cranky mamma-bot, or Ah can be the monster lurking in the depths that scared you--which way you want to play it? 'Cause you is dealin' with a slavedriver, if I make ma guess, and he ain't gonna be no nice guy. // Hellbender wondered if they tossed their worn-out miners into the recycler, too. What was the organic equivalent of the Smelting Pools? The compost heap?
|
|
|
Post by SceneMod on Jun 30, 2010 14:46:26 GMT -5
Someone asked for a SceneMod?
The overseer looks at Whirligig more closely, his pedipalps peeling back to reveal mandibles twisted in a thin sneer of derision, and he snaps, "Everyone's got a lost mom-bot! Tell it to someone who cares. Eeesh, I wish Dave would let me know when we're getting new urchins in... Shell, tell the new kid what he's doing!"
Shell looks smaller than most of the kids but is a bit less scrawny. She's grey dust all over and might be something pallid underneath. She vaguely resembles a bipedal, sapient Anklyosaurus, but for all her armour, her features are shockingly delicate, even fragile. Some tatters of something that might be cloth hang off her plates, and her eyes shine like the moon in the darkness. She murmurs, voice very quiet and hesitant, almost choked - almost like she's been choked, "'quipment racks're this a'way. Gotta name?" Shell coughs a bit as she gestures off toward another tunnel.
|
|
|
Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Jul 1, 2010 20:20:23 GMT -5
Whirligig is rather fond of mandibles. They remind him of some of the coworkers he used to have before they all caught a bad case of the dead. Sneers, not so fond of, but still rather familiar!
He keeps an expression of bland innocence on his face as the overseer mistakes him for a slave-child. Meanwhile, his processors churn over his possibilities. What he'd like to do is tell the guy that his mining operation is bad and he should feel bad and then punch him in the face with an explosive charge. And then maybe blow the whole place up to erase this particular stain in the history of mining.
However, this plan of action holds several logistical issues, starting with the fact that he's rather short to be punching the overseer in the face and moving along to the fact that he can't really justify blowing up tunnels full of people. Especially not downtrodden, enslaved people.
He feels like these are issues that can be overcome, but not in the time that he has to think before Shell comes up to lead him.
"Eh, call me 'Gig," he says, deciding to go with the flow for now.
As he heads in the direction of the equipment racks, he finally gets to replying to Hellbender. //I vote for cranky monster momma lurking in the depths! Also, I seem to have been conscripted.//
|
|
Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Jul 2, 2010 20:39:56 GMT -5
The tunnel narrowed again, and the great mining worm halted again, probing the rock with low-frequency sonar. Hellbender's soundings gave him further information; were he in robot form, he'd have been scowling balefully at the shabby excuse for shoring. Were he to bore straight up the tunnel, tearing out the shoring, the whole shebang would come crashing down and he'd be digging through tons of rubble.
// Told ya, // Hellbender replied absently. Great. His target was now surrounded by witnesses; no ganking the little glitch in secret any more. He transformed into robot mode and crept up the tunnel, stooped over. Though the tunnels were built to Pz-Zazz scale, Hellbender was big and burly even by their standards, and it was a low ceiling. The only lights showing were the dim red glow of his optics and the red eyespot of the targetting ring on his shoulder gun--three monstrous eyes in the darkness. Hellbender didn't need light to "see".
// Rock's too brittle up this-a-way. If Ah bore out the shoring, the whole shebang comes down. Ah'm going to have to dig around, // he lied. The longer the crazy glitch didn't know he could transform, the longer he might keep Whirligig from suspecting he was a Decepticon.
A thought occurred to him. // Can you get a count of their slave miners? Might give us a clue to their production. Wonder if they import them, or snatch 'em locally? //
...and he still needed to file a report with Shockwave about the utterly gutted state of underground energy resources on this planet.
|
|
|
Post by SceneMod on Jul 2, 2010 21:50:23 GMT -5
Shell gives 'Gig' a queer look, and she repeats, "Gig? Huh. Gig." Like gig 'em, boys. She shudders. The equipment tunnel is a rather steep, slickly sloped tunnel relative to the previous tunnel - it's pretty easy to slide down, an that may be intentional. Keep the semi valuable equipment up where it's easy to bring in spares and the urchins down in the dark and the danger.
There are easily dozens of workers, almost all children, just in the tunnel Whirligig first encountered, and the way these things branch, there looks to be dozens more such segments. The total number might easily be in the hundreds.
The overseer turns and twists his mandibles into a frown at the three glowing red lights in the dark. Fingers fumbling over the cattleprod hanging at his belt, he demands, "Ey, what are you? If the brats have cobbled together some nonsense, the time lost'll come out of their worthless hides!"
The workers around him, those healthy enough for it, frantically try to fake a double-time pace as he makes that pronouncement.
|
|
|
Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Jul 4, 2010 20:57:43 GMT -5
"Yeah, Gig! Short for Giggles." Whirligig gives Shell what's meant to be a cheerful grin, but might come off as a bit manic.
He's not feeling particularly cheerful on the inside, right now. He's feeling kind of... conflicted. He looks at Shell as little as possible, not because of what she makes him feel, but rather what she doesn't. The girl is in a sad state, to say the least, and he should be feeling, well, sad for her. Or angry. Or some strong emotion. But mostly when he looks at her, he just gets a dull sense of pity. He's angrier at this perversion of his chosen profession than the mistreatment of all these poor creatures.
That's just not right.
He shoves his unease away and replies to Hellbender. //Take your time, sweet circuits!//
Eying the equipment tunnel, he snorts, he lifts each of his feet in turn and swivels his wheels up around his ankles, a pair of large hands folding out of his lower legs to take their place on the ground. All the better to help him grip with. Tentatively making his way up to the equipment, he attempts to chat amiably with Shell.
"So... how long have you been down here?"
To Hellbender he adds, //I'm going to go out on a limb and just say they've got a lot. Like a lotta lot. Like, a slave army.// Possibly hyperbole, possibly not.
|
|
Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Jul 4, 2010 21:33:18 GMT -5
// Ah see, // Hellbender replied briefly, sounding slightly distracted. // If you get the chance, spot the overseers and guards, will ya? If they've cheaped out on the overseer and guard vs slave ratio, they're vulnerable to a slave revolt or escape. // There was so little extractable fossil fuels left, that if these two-bit operators were cleared out, Hellbender could scoop up the whole supply before reporting back to Shockwave, and no one to be the wiser. So he told himself, and noted in the report he planned to file.
Oh look, the overseer had spotted him. Challenging Hellbender was probably the by-the-book move, in his opinion; fumbling for something at his belt--ah, probably a weapon, the way he was gripping it, not a communicator--and apparently not calling for backup was a stupid move. Amateurish, even. Would he make more amateur's mistakes?
Hellbender backed up around the corner, withdrawing into the deeper darkness. In the darkness, without the usual clues of depth perception, it appeared that the 'eyes' turned and disappeared, as if fleeing rapidly. The sound of gravel scraping on something hard-shelled whispered in the distance...
Instead, the monster lurked around the corner, back pressed against the ceiling as he hovered, ready to pounce with his arms spread wide, cutters whirring very softly in anticipation...
|
|