Sentinel Prime Interviews Slider

[Sentinel Prime]

Month 3, Week 1, Day 2, semi-private

Sentinel Prime has an office now. Kind of. He's supposed to share it with Breakaway, but so far, that has mostly amounted to him trying to avoid Breakaway entirely so that he has the place to himself. Having Breakaway around for the interviews would be awkward, anyway!

Sentinel Prime reviews the personnel file for Slider while he waits for the spotter to arrive. The idea of a 'spotter' is, in general, a slightly strange concept for him, because Sentinel Prime is an Animated Autobot. The idea of a spotter/sniper pair doesn't make much sense when Animated Autobots aren't allowed to have conventional firearms.

He hasn't had much, if anything, to do with Slider thus far, which will make judging him both harder and easier. On the one hand, he isn't going into this with biases. On the other, Slider hasn't done anything important enough yet to get noticed.

[Slider]

Sentinel has no idea how awkward it would be. Having two commanders there while Slider is being scrutinized would probably make the poor mech burst a pressure valve. Although, considering the wide-eyed stare he was giving Sentinel, he also might not have noticed Breakaway at all at that point if he was.

Of course the reason for the stare was because Sentinel reminded his of Zeta. Sure there were vast differences in body structure, but the grim authority in his eyes and the feeling of professional pride Slider got from him were unmistakably his former commander's. He thought simply familiarizing himself with Sentinel would help. It didn't.

Still, Slider had an objective here. He was going to prove himself and this interview was the first step. Schooling down his feelings under years of military training Slider entered the office and walked up to the
desk, finishing with a crisp salute.

"Slider reporting, sir."

[Sentinel Prime]

There is something of a resemblance in the overall body plan, what with the broad shoulders and narrow waist, where the Autobot symbol sits, the point of the knees, the choice of a strange archaic melee weapon, and the blue colouration. They look more different than they look alike, but there's an echo of something there.

Sentinel Prime doesn't know that about Zeta, though. He reads whatever his clearance will let him, but if he stumbled across that fact, he's not cross-referencing it now. He just knows that Slider is staring at him, and he doesn't know why. It could be bad, it could be good, or it could just be that Slider has trouble focusing his optics. Sentinel Prime doesn't know.

He stares back at Slider, taking him in, looking him over for any defect, any stain, any slouch in his posture. After a moment, he salutes back, to signal that Slider can release that salute he's holding, but he doesn't tell Slider to be at ease. Sentinel Prime is quite fine with making poor Slider stand there the whole time, even though there are other chairs in the office.

Sentinel Prime opens this interview as he's been opening every other, with, "Slider, why do you want to do this?"

[Slider]

If Sentinel were looking for any blemishes or stains, Slider would have doubted he'd find any. This was an official interveiw and Slider took that seriously. He'd used waxed, retouched, and scrubbed the Pit out of his body frame. He was also ready for that particular question, more than any other, as it had occupied him long before he'd even submitted his application. With the salute returned, Slider's arm snapped to his side as he answered.

"It's complex sir, but there are two reasons. First, my function usually puts me out ahead of any unit I'm assigned to. Usually it's to sniff out Decepticon encampments. On Earth or any other planet we encounter I might be doing the same and come across a native life form. I want to know what to do and how to act. The second is a little more personal and related..."

"I want to be better than I am right now. I want to prove that I have a right to be here amongst the rest of you. I don't want to be accepted just because the rocks teleported me here. I want to be a real asset."

There was, of course, a third reason, hidden behind the first two, but he felt that it wasn't appropriate to voice here. He wanted to serve under the only Autobot that even came close to reminding him of Zeta. A soldier could have many commanders in their life, but sometimes there was no comparing them to the first.

[Sentinel Prime]

According to Breakaway's mun, Breakaway's side of the office is:

"Breakaway's half is totally going to be decorated in little holograms of fighter jets, with a bookshelf of Janes manuals. Also the ceiling might be full of pinpricks from Breakaway throwing styluses at it, depending on how much time he has to spend in there."

Sentinel Prime's side of the office is meticulously clean, though he has a bunch of stacks of eBooks on aliens, strategy, tactics, martial arts, law, and military topics on his shelves.

Sentinel Prime is tempted to pull out the white glove test on Slider, but he's not really met the fellow before. That might come off a bit strangely.

He's hearing some of the same problems from Slider that he heard from Elita-1 - specifically, he's hearing that Slider isn't too experienced, and he wants to pick up at that experience here and now. So Sentinel Prime skips out on the script, because Slider says something very concerning, and Sentinel Prime wants to poke that before he forgets, "Have you ever met an alien?"

[Slider]

...And then came the question Slider was hoping Sentinel wouldn't ask.

"Well, no sir," his shoulders slumping the tiniest bit as he realized he was admitting the entire reason he should not be allowed to join.

"At the point where I'm from, the war is still on Cybertron. Were were only just about to spread out into space because of the evacuation. If my ship had made it I'm sure I would have met some aliens while we traveled..."

"But despite that," Slider said as he straitened up once more, "I'm still willing to learn sir. I'm sure you'll teach us about cultures no one on the group would be familiar with."

[Sentinel Prime]

"Well," Sentinel Prime says, rather neutrally, "you might be a natural at this sort of thing," or Slider might freak out when a narliphant sneezes on him.

"But this will not be easy." He gives Slider a very serious look. "If it's training you're looking for, I'd suggest talking to Kup. He's really good at seeing a 'bots strengths and weaknesses and suggesting who might be able to help with what. There's something of a difference between learning on the job and having no idea what the job entails, hmm?"

"That said. All right. How do you feel about tedium?"

[Slider]

Hell yes Slider would freak out. Those things rip off Transformer arms when they get angry. Slider is pretty attached to his.

"I don't expect this to be easy sir, and I'm not just looking for extra training. I want to prove myself and I want to be part of this unit."

He pauses for a moment as a thought occurs to him, an honestly sly thought, a rarity for Slider to be sure. "If I'm not fit for the job, then the testing involved would filter me out as being completely unsuitable. If not then I might be a natural at this, like you said sir."

As a Spotter, sometimes the enemies didn't come over the ridge, leaving him staring at a ridge for a solar cycle. Slider could happily do tedium, which he reiterated, "I can do tedium sir."

[Sentinel Prime]

Sentinel Prime points out, a bit testily, "To join in the first place, you should be proven useful to the unit somehow first, not prove yourself after the fact."

There will be the try-outs, however, as Slider says.

Next question. "How will you handle it if we make contact with a species that seems friendly enough, but once our guards are down, they make a sincere and concerted effort to kill us all?"

[Slider]

"That's true..." Slider admits. So much for being sly...

"First I'd try to reconnect with the unit if any of us are separated," Slider responds quickly, back on the familiar ground of things trying to kill him, "and then we'd attempt to escape any pursuit before trying to figure out what went wrong. I'd defend myself if I had to, but I know that it should be a last resort in case it was all somehow a misunderstanding. Kind of like back home when an Autobot would go berserk from dark energon corruption."

[Sentinel Prime]

"Wait a minute," Sentinel Prime says, holding up one hand and squinting at Slider. He does his best to read what Autobots and Maximals put in the database and stay up to date. No one is ever going to embarrass him with some factoid! This must have slipped his notice. "Dark energon corruption. Explain that."

[Slider]

Slider droops a little. Not so much for being interrupted, but more because Sentinel hadn't read his data entry. He knew it wasn't much, but he liked to think that at least command had read it. Surely what Sentinel wanted to know was in there, wasn't it? Slider accessed his entry and quickly scanned it, only to slump a little more as he realized he'd only mentioned the corruption in passing.

"Well, sir, dark energon corruption is what happens when an Autobot is exposed to a large amount of dark energon and it doesn't kill them. They go a little crazy, usually doing anything from trying to destroy whatever or whoever they can get their hands on to becoming insanely possessive of places or things. I know that an energon repair ray can remove the corruption when used correctly, but I've also heard that if you damage a mech enough that the dark energon will burn out faster in their systems."

"Does that help sir?"

[Sentinel Prime]

Sentinel Prime has something of a bad memory. He keeps getting people's names wrong or getting his own age wrong. Little things like that. When Slider explains the corruption, there is a flash of recognition in Sentinel Prime's optics, and he says, "Oh, oh, that stuff your Megatron wanted to seed Cybertron's core with? That's... loony. Hope the Decepticons here don't try a stunt like that."

They probably will.

"Yes, I get it now. Now... How do you feel about performing?"

Poor Slider, this interview is getting rather disjointed.

[Slider]

"Let's hope not sir."

Slider really did. That was one spectre haunting his life that he truly wished that would never make it's way here.

"Performing? As in entertainment sir?"

[Sentinel Prime]

Sentinel Prime frowns and reminds, "Hope for the best; prepare for the worst. I've tangled with Oil Slick first hand, and let me tell you, he'd love that dark energon you're talking about. He'd get his jollies thinking about our medics scrambling in a panic to try to do something.

He folds his hands on the desk and nods. "Performing. Suppose we're asked to negotiate with the Nindoairans, and they demand that we put on a play to appease their Low Vizier. The Elite Guard will be expected to put a face on the Autobot and Maximals and a good face at that. It means PR work. It means showing off and playing to a crowd. It means precision parade drills."

Sentinel Prime likes precision parade drills.