Chapter 1
The war had taken its toll. Their whole planet, not dead, yet, but dying. Many onboard hoped to be able to return to it one cycle, once the core had healed. But that could take hundreds of thousands of years. For now, they would remain in a kind of exile, wandering the stars in the Autobot's flagship - really a glorified cargo hauler - the Ark.
Prime needed to find a planet with enough resources to produce energon for the troops' rations and refuel and repair the ship. So far, the scientists onboard had found stable stars to gather solar and thermal energy from. But those forms of energy only partially alleviated the crisis he feared would soon become too large to ignore.
"There's an old lunar mining outpost within our current quadrant, it may have some energon." Trailbreaker said, glancing over his shoulder guards to see what Prowl thought of the fact.
His stoic commander frowned. "Mining outpost? If it's all the way out here, it must be abandoned for some time."
Smokescreen, eavesdropping from his terminal (like he do), looked up from the screen to throw in his 2 credits. "Sir, since the outpost is 'all the way out here', it could have some energon left, because the 'Cons won't know to look for it, right?"
Prowl swiveled his seat to look at the younger tactician quizzically. "An abandoned mine has surely been stripped of all its worthwhile energon."
"Actually, Sir," Trailbreaker began, not wanting to sound insubordinate, "Mining outpost delta-3-3-7-4 has been non operational for approximately 600,000 vorns. According to records It was created during the end of the Golden Age. Energon mines at that time were considered exhausted once all the crystals at or above a 79% purity grade were extracted. The primary market for energon extended mainly to higher grades, therefore theoretically, the mine could have been abandoned with many lower grade crystals still inside."
Prowl tilted his head, inwardly thoughtful but outwardly expressionless. "Thank you for your input, Trailbreaker. While I do not see much value in going after low grade energon - if there even is any energon - I will discuss the matter with the Prime."
Trailbreaker glanced at Smokescreen, who was grinning at him over Prowl's shoulder for the backup. Later that orn, during an officer's meeting, Prowl kept his word and mentioned Trailbreaker's findings. After much debate, Prime had to admit it was too good a chance for energon - unlikely as it was - to pass up. The new coordinates were set.
"Put your mask on you idiot!" said Ryan, pitching his spare at Lauren and smiling when it happened to hit her. The impact made her tumble backwards off her knee-high seat with a squawk . Daniel, who was sitting next to her, almost did the same from laughing so hard.
"Hey!"
"This isn't earth. While there is some oxygen in the air, it doesn't make up enough of this moon's atmosphere to keep us alive." Ryan said in lieu of an apology, smirking.
"Chill," Lauren said, reseating herself on the ruined wall and crossing her legs, " I was just enjoying not having to wear any equipment on another plan-moon-for a minute. I was gonna put it back on in time. Duh." She noticed he was carrying something in his fist. "Where were you just now? Find anything interesting?"
Ryan uncurled his hand so that both his crewmates could see the blue rock he held. "Just more of these crystals. Kinda like the ones back on Earth."
"Pretty." Lauren commented. Daniel's radio buzzed in his pocket, and he got up, walking away a bit to take the call. Lauren shifted her gaze from the rock to its holder and asked on a more serious note, "So, who d'you think built this place?"
Ryan shrugged. "I have no clue. The Captain thinks it must have been done by the old settlers or something, but I don't know. People all the way out here? If they were colonizers like with Mars and Seros-2 then why did they abandon the place? Seems like a waste of good metal." He said, vaguely gesturing with his hand to the expanse of broken metal roadways, structures, and what was obviously mines. But mining what?
"I don't think the this place is completely abandoned." Daniel said as he jogged back over, having heard that last bit. He looked uneasy, and put his radio back in a pants pocket. Ryan inwardly wondered how much stuff Daniel carried around in those cargo pants, there were so many pockets. "That was Briggs. The radar buoy we deployed about a parsec out is picking up a ship. A big ship."
Ryan swore, and Lauren jumped up. "Shit! Pirates!?"
"They're...not...sure." Daniel replied in between breaths. They were running now, breathing deeply and dodging the bits of the ruins strung out in their path. Back to the ship. They were about half a mile away from the shuttle that could take them there.
The uneven ground suddenly gave way beneath Ryan's feet, though thankfully the drop into the unstable mine wasn't far enough to break anything. Apparently the colonizers had mined close to the surface. Ryan sat on his ass, stunned for second that nothing was broken, before shakily getting up and dizzily dusting himself off. He looked up. Lauren and daniel looked down.
"RYAN! You okay?!" Lauren shouted.
"Yeah!" he yelled. Daniel sighed in relief before getting on his radio while Lauren circled the hole.
"Can you climb up?" She demanded.
Daniel said, "Houston, we have a problem." into his radio in a weirdly calm voice. Ryan looked at the jumble of rocks and metal that had collapsed under him. "Hell no."
He looked away from the hole in the roof to the rest of the mine shaft he was in, and saw several veins of the blue crystals he had found earlier running in either direction. They sparkled from the sunlight.
"Look," Ryan said, sucking in a breath to steady himself against what he was about to say, "Go back without me. Drop all the emergency rations you guys have in here with me and beat it back to the ship. Dalton will steer it out of the area before they even get here, and they'll lose interest in a day, maybe two, when they can't find you. Then they'll leave, and you guys can come get me." Daniel looked especially ready to protest, but Ryan barked preemptively, "That's an order!" He hated giving orders to his friends, but he had the authority to make tough calls in tough situations. And now was definitely one of those situations.
Daniel dropped his bag into the hole and disappeared from view. Yup, he was pissed. Lauren's rations hit the ground too, and she said, "Set up the long-range repeater if you need help before then We will come get you" before also running out of sight to catch up with Daniel. Soon their footsteps faded.
Perceptor smiled. According to the ship's close range scanners, the lunar mine had more energon and at a better grade than they'd originally hoped. Even he would admit that mid grade energon wasn't the most fuel efficient (or enjoyable). But if that's what they could get, that's what they would take. Beggars weren't choosers. Prime's voice rumbled over the general comms:
-Perceptor, open the shuttle bay doors-
Perceptor transformed into his root mode and typed in the access code.
-Door opening now, Prime-
While it would have been nice to get off the Ark even for a little bit, his alt mode would only hinder those gathering the energon. Those leaving included Hound (who Prime reasoned could use the experience), the aerialbots (who could use a chance to stretch their wings, being unable to fly anywhere but in the practice bay), Bluestreak (because he wouldn't shut up), Ironhide, and many of the stronger framed bots along with the necessary drilling and storing equipment. Perceptor watched the small fleet of shuttles approach and enter the atmosphere on one of the Central Hub's screens. He fervently hoped all would go well and they would bring back the needed energon.
Hound and Bluestreak raced each other to the area they had been told to inspect, most of the others extracting from the first mine shaft or checking other openings near it.
"I would have won that last one if not for this debris." Hound declared as he transformed, Bluestreak circling back and transforming beside him with a smile.
"Oh come on the roads are still mostly intact it's not like this metal is that corroded, and I was way ahead of you. This mine entrance looks kind of creepy, don't you think? I mean it's all abandoned and dark and kinda creepy, which duh It's dark because it's underground and obviously we already knew those people from the Golden Age abandoned it nearly three deca-vorns ago but still…-"
The two walked into the entrance, their peds thumping loudly against the stone floor. Bluestreak was right about it being dark, and they both switched their optics to bright/night vision. Small veins ran along the walls. Nothing big, but possibly worth extracting. The energon crystals glowed faintly. The air was dusty. Sunlight briefly reflected off of Hound's green armor from a hole in the roof. His scanners didn't pick up anyone besides Bluestreak, yet the scout couldn't shake the feeling that they weren't alone.
-Hound to Ironhide, our area's clear-
-Anythin' we can use?-
-There's some smaller veins, but I'm detecting larger amounts within the walls. We will definitely need to drill for it.-
-Mark your position, I'm sending one of tha crews. That second shaft we were exploring wasn't deep.-
In half a groon fifteen bots - led by a green mech named Springer - arrived and got to it.
-Uhhhhhhhh, Boss?...I got a...problem...you might want to get down here-
Springer hadn't even noticed one of his mechs was missing. His engined revved.
-Sunstreaker get back here! This isn't the time for spelunking, we got a job to do!-
A red servo rested on his shoulder, and Springer turned around to see a disturbed looking Sideswipe. "What?"
"Sir, I really think you should go see what Sunstreaker...found." At the frontliner's tone, Springer begrudgingly agreed to go check.
"This had better not be some prank," he said, stalking down the corridor after the errant Sunstreaker. Probably trying to get out of soiling his armor doing actual work.
"Sir." Sunstreaker greeted him stiffly when he found the yellow menace. Woah. Sunstreaker was being polite. This might be more serious than he thought.
"Well? What is it?" Springer asked.
Sunstreaker merely pointed, and said, "I don't know." Springer's gaze followed the gesture. All he saw was rocks, energon, and more rocks. Wait. Something was moving. He took a few steps forward, and realized that the thing he'd taken for a darker rock wasn't a rock. It was a lump of...something...steadily moving up and down. He looked back at Sunstreaker, then the moving thing, then at Sunstreaker again. Sunstreaker shrugged.
Tentatively he kicked it, and grimaced at the soft texture. Then the figure made a noise. A groan? Springer and Sunstreaker both backpedaled and unsubspaced their guns while the - mech? - uncurled.
The masked figure stared at them silently, unmoving, as if any sudden move would make them disappear.
"What. The. Frag." Sunstreaker vented. Oops. Startled by the noise the strange mech leapt to his peds, his shaggy armor swaying with the motion. Sunstreaker aimed his gun at the stranger, a gesture he thought would make him stop moving. But perhaps the the unknown mech saw the action as a challenge or worth the risk, because he unsubspaced a primitive gun of some kind out of his flimsy armor and fired.
Sunstreaker snarled, not because he was hurt by the weak projectiles that bounced off his armor with a clink but because someone would dare have the audacity to shoot at him. So he fired back, before Springer's shout of "NO!" could register. The EMP round hit the mech squarely in the chest plates, causing him to double over with an energon curdling shriek and lurch to the ground. Then he stopped moving. There was a burnt smell.
"SUNSTREAKER!" yelled Springer, running to the unknown and probably hostile mech. The 'bot didn't move. "You offlined him!"
"He started it!" The golden warrior defended. Springer put his hands on the black mech's armor, and immediately noticed three things - one: the armor was surprisingly warm, two: the chest plates were moving (barely). Why did this mech vent so much? And three: The mech's armor was malleable. The frag kind of useless armor was this stranger wearing?
"He's still functioning. I...think"
Sunstreaker poked the downed form with his ped. "I have a bad feeling about this. His armor is fragging weird."
"I know. For some reason my scanners aren't functioning properly, they aren't detecting a spark signature."
"Mine aren't either. Fragger must have a short range scrambler on him."
Springer tilted his head thoughtfully. "Perhaps Wheeljack or Ratchet can figure it out. He needs medical attention. Here," Springer said, looking up at Sunstreaker, "help me carry him back to the shuttle."
The frontliner scooted away in offense, or maybe disgust. "What, n-no, I'm NOT carrying that weird, filthy mech up a mine! I-uh, I should actually get back to helping the team, yeah…." He transformed and zoomed out of there before Springer could order him not to.
Springer stared at the dust created by Sunstreaker's hasty retreat at a loss. He could get Prowl to punish him for his insubordination later. He paced around the prone figure on the ground.
Eventually electing to grasp him by a trod (which was still warm, and slightly squishy - ew), he hoisted the smaller mech carefully over his shoulder guard, opening a commline.
-Springer to Ironhide, I need to take one of the shuttles back to the Ark-
-What for? Party's just gettin' started over here. Is somebot' injured?-
-Yes and no, Sunstreaker and I have found what appears to be a mech, but we're not exactly sure. Perceptor or Ratchet needs to look at him, because Sunstreaker shot him-
Silence, then:
-Well don't just stand around, take shuttle C-1-7!-
-Understood-
Springer marched past his teammates when he reached their work area, noting a conveniently absent Sunstreaker and garnering several looks. Nobody said anything to him though, probably due to the ticked off feeling he was projecting into his EM field. Even Bluestreak kept his mouth shut. He marched past them, out of the mine, and all the way to the specified - and smallest - shuttle. It was only once he was sitting at the controls with the body laid out on the seats in the cargo compartment that he opened a three-way comm between Wheeljack, Ratchet, and himself.
-Ratchet, I have an unknown mech down from an EMP charge to the chest-plates. His frame is of an unknown make. I am not sure what is wrong with him. Wheeljack, you are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the different frame types. Trust me Ratchet, you might need Wheeljack's opinion. This guy is slagging weird-
There was a peace before the storm, and then Ratchet's curses thundered across the private line. Ah yes. Always good to talk to the doc. After explaining to the best of his ability, which wasn't much, he left them to hash it out.