Chapter 1: Groundfall
"Once we hit 500 feet, you're going to be dropped. Your pre-programmed training will kick in at 250 feet, and once you make groundfall, you'll be straight into the action. Any questions? Heh, sorry, forgot, you don't know how to speak."
TX-13 942 stared at the silver being in front of him, the base instincts inside him barely flickering as he received his instructions. Something…. something was wrong, he thought, struggling to comprehend all the symbols flashing in front of his optics. His thoughts were cut off by the shearing of metal, alarms blaring around the hangar, the thousands of identical machines coloured red by the massive crimson lights illuminating the space. The mech in front of him, the…the captain, he decided, though he was still unsure what that word signified, looked utterly terrified, his humorous composure lost as the hangar started to shudder, hidden forces blasting at the sides. Staring back at TX-13, his face settled into a mask of grim certainty. Slamming a fist against the red badge on his chest, he nodded to a hulking green mech: "Let them drop, we're at six hundred feet already, they'll survive the impact."
The other robot nodded, whatever expression he had lost behind the impressive faceplate covering the pertinent features, pulling a large lever illuminated with gold lights. The ground beneath TX-13 opened, revealing a blazing inferno far beneath them, streaks of light flashing through the air, tearing through angular jets and sending them spiralling to the ground below, smoke belching from their internals. The steel claws holding TX-13 in place snapped open, and for a split second, he was weightless, floating in the hangar…until he fell, the inexorable pull of gravity ripping him from the quiet cold of the hangar into the roaring inferno of the planet. The rush of wind past his chassis was almost deafening, his mind still blank, missing key information he needed to make sense of everything around him. In front of his vision, a counter appeared, counting down numbers: 550 feet, 500 feet…350….300… As the numbers turned to 250, a searing pain shot through his head, thunderous detonations blasting his fellow drop-troopers out of the sky. However, he had his orders, and that's all an Autotrooper needs. Operating on instinct, datafeeds flashing through his HUD (Heads Up Display) updating the condition of his body, he activated the jets installed into his legs and arms, using their single charge to rotate his body into a proper landing position. As the ground loomed beneath him, he drew his mag-rifle, slamming into the ground, causing slight damage to his legs but nothing that would result in operational failure. Around him, other troopers were making their landings, some of them succeeding in making successful landings while the others, well, they were not so lucky.
"Report." TX-13 barked over his comms channel, sending a rank pulse through the communique. The mechs surrounding him sent back operational confirmation reports. Two hundred troops in his radius out of twenty thousand…wait, what the slag? We're down to two hundred? He thought, just as enemy units burst out of hiding, their black, angular forms bearing sleek rifles, sending blasts of purple energy at the massed Autotroopers, ripping through the ranks. TX-13 rolled out of the firing range, his arms moving of their own accord as he brought his mag-rifle to bear, pulling the trigger and sending a barrage of rounds at the nearest Decepticon, his HUD identifying it as a "Scout-Class". Whatever a Scout-Class was wasn't exactly well armoured, he pondered as the enemy mech's chest was torn open, killing it in kliks, another taking its place before Pax could even blink. Around him, mechs were dropping like flies on both sides, however, the Autotroopers were faring far worse than the Decepticons, the massed enemy troops easily surrounding them, forcing the men onto the defensive. TX-13 moved back to back with two other 'bots, a hulking Gunner-class with a massive cannon mounted on his right arm and an equally massive Duellist armed with a hammer and shield, the three of them relentlessly firing at the enemy forces
"There's a slaggin' lot of these pit heads, eh?" the larger mech chuckled, his voice deep and raspy, his heavy cannon tearing holes through the swarming mass of Decepticon scouts, the Autobrand on his left arm an almost angry shade of red, his massive shoulders shuddering with the recoil of his cannon. TX-13 laughed sourly in return, a low-ammunition alert flashing in the side of his HUD. He doubted he'd survive the loss of his rifle, seeing as the "pre-programmed training" seemed to omit the principles behind reloading it. The other mech, the Duellist, was silent as his hammer crushed the heads of enemy units who moved too close to his compatriots. He was the largest out of the three, his heavier armour and massive gauntlets giving him an almost overpowering sense of strength and durability, though to be fair, he was roughly identical to all the other mechs of his type on the field, who had done exactly what TX-13 and his new allies had done: banded into groups of three, two firing and one covering. Well, they had, but that was largely moot, since most of them were being slaughtered by the enemy forces, the stench of burning metal and leaked Energon overpowering TX-13. He tried to stop firing, to try and pick a different target than the scouts, trying to aim at the heavier units massacring his allies. His hands moved to take aim, firing at…the scouts. He kept trying to swap targets, but his body rebelled against his orders. He sent out an alert flash to the survivors, trying to tell them that their programming was actively working against their best efforts to improvise in the field. Again, his body betrayed him, sending a fire at will message to his fellow soldiers, his HUD sending error messages every time he tried to do something, anything that would be a more effective course of action. The programming resisted his every effort, sending him into pre-programmed movement routines that nearly got him killed every time he used them.
"I've got six rounds left! I'm going to switch over to handgun in five kliks, understood?" TX-13 barked to the gunner and the duellist, his own voice surprising him, since he had only ever used it once. It was a deep, gravelly voice, one that sounded older than it should. He liked it, he thought as he emptied his clip into a Vehicon head, slamming the bayonet of his rifle into the face of another, the rifle buckling under the pressure but killing the scum. His holster popped open, whipping out the pistol he fired two rounds into the nearest 'con, the orange plasma tearing a smoking hole in the glitchhead's slagging interiors. The pistol clicked, the weapon jammed just as an enemy tank aimed his own plasma weapon at TX-13 and his merry band