Chapter Text
Guide to time measurements
Nano-Klick: One Second
Klick: ~1 minute
Solar-Cycle: One Day
Deca-Cycle: ~One month
Stellar Cycle: One Year
.-Beetle-.
Landing on a planet this side of the universe wasn't really a part of the plan.
Much less one with so much organic gunk.
In the span of 5 klicks everything seems to go wrong.
With an audible click I can feel myself online, which should be a great sign, right? It means we finally reached the communication range for Paradon.
But with another nano-klick I realized everything was shaking. Violently.
I almost throw myself to the ground with how fast I sit up and turn to stand, balancing and getting to the terminal. Unfortunately this doesn't last long because suddenly I'm on the other side of the ship with my helm aching.
“The pits?!” Getting to my pedes I try to ignore the pain in my processor and wings. Shakily, not only due to the ship's unfound turbulence but also due to the disorientation, I staggered to the terminal and put my pedes into locked mode to stay there. I ignore the Blue mech next to me. I can worry about that later. I can't think about either of them right now.
Quickly I enter the passkey in and locate the map, trying to find where we are and why the ship was reaalllyy going through it.
Huh..
Funny… I can't seem to find it.
I scroll a bit off the map trail. If we’re off course we can just get back on the trail, easy. Dart was great at getting the ship back on track.
Not there. We might have to stop on a planet to convert some energy to energon for the extra mileage at this point.
I scroll out some more. My Spark starts to sink.
That's okay, if we’re too far from paradon at this point we could just relocate to Caminus. I'm sure Leafjumper wouldn't mind at all.
Some more scrolling. Some more. So-
Ah. We’re… lightyears away.
This would be bad, but its only exacerbated by the fact the planet, or moon (whatever the pits this is), we’re on is completely uncharted, the only identifying tag being E-638a.
Stepping away from the control panel I look around, completely calm. So calm, in-fact, that my servos start shaking. Spewing out a collection of exploitatives, I quickly advance to the berth rooms, ignoring that Dart somehow onlined at some point and for some reason fell into stasis next to the terminal. Ill wake him up later and interrogate him about what the frag happened.
You see, I knew this would happen. Taking an Autobot prisoner with us to a completely secret mission to an Autobot led planet was the worst idea Leafjumper had EVER come up with. And although that's honestly not saying much, this was a new low for them.
The berthroom wasn't quite spacious, but it did allow enough room to cram in two more long-term stasis pods in it, much to my dismay. I maneuvered myself to their pod.
“Thank Primus…” I mutter quietly, allowing myself to relax slightly at the sight of Leafjumper. It was good to see them well after this hiccup. I used the access codes for the ship and the pod snapped open, waking Leafjumper up. As much as I wanted to wait for further instruction from them, I immediately moved to the control room, where the terminal now softly beeped. The ambience of the ship was calming, and helpful to me to know that…it was online.
Ugh. I always forget what Dart says about that.
I moved to the bridge of the ship, internally sending a ping to search for any cybertronian life forms outside the ship, pulling up a holographic tab with my servo. It connected with my digits and I began to tell it more commands.
[Neg]
[Neg]
[Neg]
[Neg]
Not making that mistake again
[Neg]
[Pos]
Good.
>Open S.W.P.S.’s bridge door<
[Access code]
>Pure Logic<
A sudden hissing audibly covered the rest of the ambience in the ship, and a small wind flew through the cracks of the opening as it slowly opened. I stepped forward and stepped on the ramp of the ship, looking onward onto the planet. Wow… It was…
Really ugly.
Like, really, ugly.
I usually liked the color green but this? This was excessive. Paired with the vibrantly blue sky and…whatever those gray soft round things up there were. Speaking of soft and round, nearly everything was. It was repulsive.
“..Can't wait to leave.” I remarked to myself, at the same time getting a warning ping about the unusually high moisture in the air. I'd have to get Dart to look at why the ship deemed it so safe then, that is if I don't beat the tailpipe out of him during interrogation. Right. Dart. I enter the control room again, pinging the ship to close the bridge entrance for now. I hoped my processor would stop being as clunky as it was now after a few klicks.
Tapping the keyboard, the terminal coming to life, I administer a scan of what happened before I onlined. A klick or two later, it revealed a missing bolt on the stasis pod to be the cause of my onlining, shaken out of the pod just a few klicks ago, during the turbulence.
I scanned out to see if there were any Decepticon open comms in a radius that should catch a few solar systems at the least, unless we’re super isolated. I pray that's not the case.
I dont find any open comms. I use my specialized comm codes for higher up Decepticons. No pings.
If I cant get an answer either my fellow Decepticons or the map,
“Ohh no..” Ex-venting, I lean over the keyboard and think. While I lean over I notice a very bright blue in the corner of my vision. Ah, right.
I search Darts tag in the system, getting an immediate update on his vitals. It said he was online..?? I tried to get the system to elaborate on what exactly he was doing on the floor, but my command was blocked.
[Energon critically low, basic functions active]
..
Oh you've gotta be kidding me.
I groaned, angrily, quickly revealing some of the tubes to the terminal that went to the energon stores, hooking them up to Dart, tossing him around slightly. He’ll live. Or die, if hes that low. I couldn't care either way.
I grumble as I stand back up, tapping away furiously at the terminal to get it to allow me into the security footage, all the while missing soft pede-steps behind me.
.
..
…
“...Need any help?”
“GAH!- UH” Quickly turning, preparing my arm cannons and equipping my battle mask, I am surprised to see Leafjumper……oh yeah.
Maybe I hit my helm to hard.
I blink at them, relaxing and awkwardly turning my battle mode off. Gotta find a way to make it so that wasn't the automatic response to literally anything surprising to me, it was getting more and more embarrassing as time went on. Leaf just smiled kindly at me, something about their optics was knowing.
“Er.. yeah, I need you to show me how this works.” I reply, turning my back on Leafjumper but allowing them space next to me infront of the terminal.
“So.. help?” Leafjumper replies, with a quiet chuckle. It wasnt-
“I dont need help, I need you t-”
“Call it whatever you'd like, dear.” Leafjumper replies friendly, seeing what I'm trying to do and bypassing the ships error commands with superior code. I really gotta get that code from them at some point.
I grumble quietly but ignore it and we fall into (what I thought) a comfortable silence. They access the code and sees that it still says Dart is online and all vital signs are ago. It also brings up the tab where the security footage should be, but its completely corrupted. Before I can say anything Leaf comments “There seems to be a lack of chatter.”
Realizing that they were inferring to Dart's presence or lack thereof, I perk up slightly.
“Oh, uh, Dart?” Leafjumper turned to me expectantly, an optic ridge raised. Why were they so worried about the annoying little Autobot? He didn't even have a high rank!
“Soooooo the ship was running on a super low supply, so low that, in fact, the terminal wasn't working.” During my explanation, Leafjumper seemed less and less pleased.
“And he had a full supply soo—” I motioned to him behind me, moving out of the way so Leaf could get a good look at him. Honestly, I didnt understand why Leaf loved the little guy so much. He was about as bright as a bag of scraps.