A/N
Thanks for reading on!
You have no idea how much I appreciate it. : )
The next day Spectra had insisted that Aless train with her for at least two hours. The girl was somewhat less than enthusiastic about this.
"But we just got here!" she whined midway through the session, firmly encased in her exo-suit. "I thought we were supposed to have one day to loaf around and get used to the place before starting up training again."
"It's important that we keep sharp Aless." Answered a slightly exasperated Spectra. "Back on earth you didn't need to deal with Decepticon resonators. Here you will. You'll find it harder to see them coming then your average mech. You're a pretty good fighter, but you could be a lot better. Now let's start again. Hit me."
Aless groaned, then tensed her muscles up, trying to figure out how best to land a blow on her friend.
When she thought she'd found it, she sped forward. Even Spectra, being naturally quick, had trouble keeping up with her on foot. Most of the time, when Aless did manage to knock Spectra down, it was because of this. However, Spectra was learning just as much about her partner.
Aless dodged behind Spectra and was about to strike, however the bot had anticipated the move and before Aless could register what had happened, she was hit. She flipped and slid a distance across the training room floor, crying out in surprise before finally coming to a stop. She lay there on her back for a few moments, stunned and staring at the ceiling. Before she had a chance to right herself, Spectra leaned over her prone form, hands on her hips.
"Okay, you want to tell me what you did wrong?" she asked. Aless groaned and sat up.
"Wasn't fast enough?" she asked. Spectra shook her head.
"Speed won't cover for your predictability." She said, Helping Aless to her feet. "Your problem is, when you find a move that works, you stick to it. You have to vary your attacks. Don't always start the same way. Understand?"
"Yes yes." Said Aless, feeling the dent in her pride. She was just glad that they were the only two in the training room.
"Alright then." Said Spectra, stepping back a few steps. "Again, hit me."
Aless sighed exasperatedly and tried to think of a new way to start her attack. The thing was, she'd never really thought of fighting in moves. She just did things. Jump out of the way when they shoot at you, when you get the chance, hit them where it hurts.
Finally a hazy sort of plan formed in her mind and she crouched down, getting ready to spring.
However, just as her legs uncoiled and lunged her forward, there was the loud panging sound of an incoming message. She stopped short of barreling into Spectra and dodged quickly to the femm's far right, just incase she used the distraction to her advantage.
The human knocked into some training equipment on her unexpected detour and was sent sprawling… Again.
Spectra sighed as the incoming message signal panged again. She reached up to her helmet and clicked her comm Unit on.
"Spectra here, go."
"Spectra, this is Ultra Magnus." Said the familiar voice at the other end of the line. "I need you and Allesandera to meet with me in the command room stat."
Spectra frowned, slightly worried. "Understood." She said, clicking her comm Off and turning to find Aless.
The girl was digging herself out from an avalanche of fallen training equipment. "Okay," She grunted. "I hope that message was worth it." Spectra sighed and once again helped her partner up.
"Come on. Magnus wants us up in control." Aless looked at Spectra, confused. That hadn't been what she'd expected at all.
When they reached the command room Aless and Spectra could see that Hotrod was already there. Along with a scarred and chipped army green mech, who Spectra recognized as Kup, and huge black mech neither of them had met before.
Magnus turned to them and nodded his head. "Well now that we're all here, we can start the briefing."
'Wait, what?' Thought Aless.
The room lights dimmed and a three dimensional map appeared, floating in mid air above a round holo-projector. The map dipicted a jagged landscape with a red line snaking its way through it. Aless couldn't help but feel dread. Why hadn't Spectra told her they were being sent out on a mission?
Kup, who had not been standing in line with Hotrod and the others, stepped forward and began to speak.
"As some of you may know, a few of our soldiers were sent out on an escort mission yesterday. They were to guard a transport carrying a new prototype resonator suit, which was being sent to an arms factory where it was to be mass produced."
Ultra Magnus stepped over to the display and continued.
"This new suit further amplifies a humans resonance. If an R-5 were to put one on, it could raise his level as far as R-7. Also, it gives its wearer the ability to transform, in a sense."
This immediately caught Aless's attention. "What? How?" she asked, and instantly felt sheepish, like she'd spoken out of turn. The thing was, she'd seen Spectra transform from robot mode to vehicle mode hundreds of times. It had always looked impressive, but painfully impossible in human terms.
However, the mech did not look annoyed with her interruption, and went on to answer her question. "The new suit is considerably larger than the older model, allowing for the addition of transforming parts." The projection of the map switched to a cross section of the suit in question. It was indeed bigger, and had two wheels folded to lay flat against the back of the shoulders.
"So far we can only get the design to work with one altmode. Though our scientists are working on others."
Aless watched fascinated as the suit shifted and reformed itself around the figure in the hologram. When it was done, there was left a slightly smaller human figure straddling a motor cycle.
"Nice." Commented Hotrod appreciatively. Aless had to agree.
'I have got to get me one of those.' She thought to herself. The image switched back to the map.
"Unfortunately," said Kup, once gain taking the wheel. "The mission went sour. About twenty minutes ago we received as SOS on Springer's channel. They were ambushed by a Decepticon raiding party about here." The green mech pointed to a spot slightly less than halfway down the red line.
"We are not sure as of yet if there were survivors." Said Magnus. Aless felt both Spectra and Hotrod tense up. "It is very probable that the cargo has been seized and is even now being transported back to Decepticon territory."
Again the picture changed. This time to some sort of ship. "One of our ships has just returned from a mission near the border of Decepticon territory. It is being refueled as we speak, and will be your transport."
"That's Quicksilver's ship isn't it?" said the huge black mech. Kup nodded.
"That's right. He's already been briefed and is just restocking before piloting this mission for you."
"Your mission is to head to the cargo transports last known location and search for survivors." Said Magnus. "There may still be Decepticons in the area so stay alert. Fallout, I'm putting you in charge. Bring our people back."
Fallout, the black mech, raised his hand and saluted. "Yes sir."
They'd been flying for maybe two hours now, if Aless was any judge. Of course, given the amount of tension she was feeling, it was possible only twenty minutes had passed.
Fallout sat in the copilot seat. He said nothing, probably going over the situation in his mind. CPU. Whatever. Spectra was sitting to her right and Hotrod sat across from them both.
The Femm had been silent ever since leaving the briefing room. Obviously a lot was weighing on her processor.
Every now and again Hotrod would try to lighten the heavy atmosphere, and fail dismally. It was hard to stay his regular upbeat self when the wellbeing of his friends was in question. Would they arrive to find them alright? Or would they find nothing but scrap metal?
The only person who did not seem upset in any way was the pilot. Aless didn't like to say, seeing as she'd only just met the guy, but it seemed to her that he had a near terminal air of permanent optimism about him. Whatever the universe threw at him, he was sure things would turn out alright. And if they didn't, well he'd figure it all out in the fullness of time.
"So, are you new to Cybertron?" he asked on her privet comm, turning around briefly to look at her.
Aless looked up, startled as the silence was finally interrupted.
"Huh? Oh yeah... Really new." She answered. The mech chuckled.
"Yeah you can always spot the new ones." He said, a good humored smile evident in his voice. "So this is your first mission here?" It was more of a statement then a question.
"It's my first day here." Aless scoffed. Quicksilver sounded surprised.
"No kidding? Well we are stretched pretty thin. Fortunately for you there shouldn't be any Decepticons around by the time we get there. How are you with dead bodies?" He asked. Aless felt herself go green.
"I uh, I've never actually seen one. I mean, not in real life. But I've seen mechs being worked on in the infirmary back on Earth, and that never bothered me." She was quick to add.
"Well, I'm sure everyone will be alive. The people on that team are hardly pushovers." He said. "But you know, you should probably prepare yourself just in case they're not. I know there was a human on the team. A girl about your age. So you know… It's different when a human is watching a mech open and being worked on, and vice versa. Just thought I'd give you a heads up."
'Well thank you so much!' Thought Aless bitterly. But tried to prepare herself anyway.
"We're reaching the area of the escort group's last transmission." Said Fallout. "Quicksilver, I want you to land the ship here."
"Can do." Said the pilot brightly. He circled the area a few times before finally spotting a place to land among the jagged and chaotic landscape.
Fallout unstrapped himself and made his way back to the others. "Alright, it's unlikely that there are still any Decepticons lurking around, but I don't want to take any chances. Spectra, I want you and Aless to head about a half a mile to the east and approach the crash site from there. Hotrod and I will come in from the west. If you come across any Decepticons sing out. If you're outnumbered you are not to initiate combat until we arrive, understood?"
"Yes sir." Said Spectra. Her voice eerily without emotion.
The terrain looked a lot different now that Aless was on the ground. From the air, the area had looked craggy and chaotic. Jetties of dark metal and stone everywhere. In truth, what she had assumed to be rock formations were really ruins. Ruins of what had once been some sort of huge and sprawling metropolis.
Silence had hung heavy between to two companions as they walked. Aless knew that Spectra was not in a talking mood. Sill, for the sake of her stretching nerves, Aless felt like she needed some conversation.
"This isn't what I expected." She said over her exo-suit's privet comm. The words seemed to shake Spectra out of some sort of internal reverie.
"Hmm? What's not what you expected?"
"Just, all this.' Said Aless, gesturing feebly at their surroundings. "From the ship I thought this was all just rocky wasteland. But it's not."
Spectra nodded. "As far as I know this used to be a very prosperous city. But it was laid to waste long before I was brought online. It was in a bad place. Right on the borders of Autobot and Decepticon territory."
Aless looked around nervously. "I thought we were well in Autobot territory." She said. Spectra shrugged.
"Well now it's ours. But this was a long time ago." She said. "The city had already been attacked several times. More and more people were leaving every day, not wanting to be caught in a crossfire. After the last major attack no one bothered rebuilding it. It's name became synonymous with danger and no one would have dared live there anymore."
"Oh..." Said Aless. It sounded lame, even to her own ears. "So… what was it called?"
Spectra opened her mouth to answer but the words never had a chance to be said. Because a poorly aimed lazer shot hit the ground between the two, and by the time Aless's mind had a chance to catch up with events she was already hiding alone somewhere in the alien rubble. She'd dodged right, away from the beam. It had come naturally. Spectra must have dodged left. Panting heavily Aless could make out the sound of their attacker bombarding the area with lazer fire.
Forcing her shaking limbs to obey, Aless crawled to her hands and knees and peered out of her meager hiding place. She could see Spectra from here. She'd dodged into the doorway of a toppled building and was trying her best to return fire. However, their unnamed assailant had her pinned down, firing round after round.
Now that she had time to collect her thoughts, Aless could see where the shots were coming from. Down the decimated street, on the roof of a five level building.
Aless didn't let herself think about what she was about to do. If she did, she was sure she'd only find a way to convince herself not to do it. Staying as low to the ground as possible, making sure she was never in a direct line of sight from the rooftop, she made her way over to the building.
The door to the building had long ago been blocked with debris. However, other collapsed buildings, some of which had obviously been much taller than her target, offered different ways up. She scrambled up the side of one of them. It lay diagonally against yet another building slightly farther away from the roof she needed to get to. It was hard to get a grip with her metal incased fingers, but finally she managed to get near the level she needed to be at.
She could see the attacker from behind now. He was green and a little bulky.
Aless drew in a shaking breath and started to charge her exo-suit's built in weapon. She'd hardly make a dent at this distance. If she wanted this guy out of commission, she was going to need to get a whole lot closer.
Her mind knew that with the added strength her resonator suit gave her, not to mention the slightly lighter gravity of Cybertron, she could make the jump from her building to his. However, her body, which had spent most of its life living by the same physical rules as most humans, was screaming 'It's a fifteen foot jump! Oh my god oh my god it's a fifteen foot jump and the ground is was way down there!'
Ignoring her bodie's protest as best she could, Aless crouched down on the slanted surface of her building. Coiling her legs underneath her like she'd done in the training room just hours before.
'Alright, alright.' She thought frantically to herself. 'One… Two… Three, GO!' With that her legs uncoiled like springs and sent her flying over the gap. Before she knew it she'd landed heavily on the other rooftop, causing considerably more noise than she'd hoped.
The green attacker, hearing the sound and also feeling that peculiar tug any Cybertronian felt when a resonator was near by, whirled around, cursing in his own language.
Aless barely had time to roll to her feet and dodge to her left as the mech fired on her, leaving a smoking crater where she had just been.
Aless swore at herself over and over again in her mind as she took laughable shelter behind yet more rubble. Her suit's arm gun had finally reached full charge, and She was about to duck out of cover and fire, when suddenly a dark shadow fell over her.
She whirled around, gun raised, only to find herself freeze with terror as she stared up into the barrel of a gigantic Lazer rifle.
She winced and shut her eyes tightly. Her last thoughts were 'I am so slagged!'
At least, they would have been her last thoughts, had her would be killer not stopped himself on catching sight of the red Autobot insignia shining brightly on the front of her exosuit.
"Oh…" he said in the deadpan voice of one who has just caught himself doing something embarrassingly stupid. "Well it's about fragging time you people showed up." He said, covering himself poorly.
A/N
I find that the story starts to get more interesting once the mission actually starts.
But of course, that's just me.
What do you think so far? I'd love to know, even if you didn't really like it let me know you read it. :3
