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==Deep Space= Decacycle before the End of the Great War==
"I'm telling you Mach," grumbled the large black plated weapons master wearily as both officers examined the screens that their ship had thrown up for them to study. "The Con's are being too quiet. We haven't come into contact with anything for orns!"
"Be calm Ironhide," the black and white mech said stoically, sweeping his servo across the holoscreen, wiping it clean of the tactical scenario that Mach Alert was occupying himself with as they filled in the dull shift. "We are in a distant quadrant of this galaxy; Orion wants to use the solar energy from the nearest star to recharge the engines, we are running surprisingly low on fuel. I think we sprang a leak that last skirmish."
"Well as long as we get back to Cybertron soon." The black plated mech huffed at the SIC as he slouched in his pilot chair, "I don't even know why the Council sent us on this little trip anyway. The Decepticons left Cybertron decacycles ago."
"I believe the terms they used as an excuse for this 'trip' were 'annihilate them', 'vaporise them' and 'Take their shuttle's floors out from under them'." Mach Alert said blandly as he connected his favourite data-pad to the tactics table, the old worn pad struggling to connect with the advanced computer terminal which the black and white Praxian scowled at, giving the 'fragile' equipment a sharp kick before the shuttle's computer finally connected with a sullen beep. Information flooded onto the holoscreen in giant clumps of data, which rotated like a galaxy before the shuttle computer began to sort out every file into clearly labelled folders.
"What's the situation?" the deep rumble of the Prime asked curiously, the doors to the Command Hub hissing open to reveal the red, blue and silver mech.
"Zero on radar, everything is quiet… again..." Ironhide sighed with a bored air tapping the radar screen as if knocking on the glass with his fingers would make Decepticon shuttles magically appear.
"Only two more orns Ironhide." The Prime said soothingly as Mach Alert finished reorganising his data-pad files, "Then I'm willing to call it quits with the Decepticons, Megatron can hide out here as long as he likes."
"Finally." The Weapons Master cried, earning a chuckle from the Prime as he wandered over to Mach Alert's designated 'Tactics Table'.
"What would be the quickest route back to Cybertron?" he asked curiously as Mach Alert once again swept his servo across the semi solid holoscreen wiping his activities and bringing up a detailed plan of the young solar system they had entered and taken refuge in.
"Cutting through this particular solar system is risky, but it would get us back to Cybertron within two decacycles with a well placed ignition of Wheeljack's Worm Hole device at the end of the system." The red and gold accented, black and white Praxian replied with a small frown of concentration, his doorwings twitching softly before tapping the screen which zoomed out of the diagram and began to point out the longer route home. "However, if we go around this Sol System it will add on multiple decacycles."
"Very well," Orion Prime frowned as Ironhide began to swing the large shuttle known as the ARK away from the third planet of the system they had been approaching, a homely looking little planet made up of mostly water with large land masses scattered across its surface. "We'll take the short cut, I trust you can steer the ARK through the asteroid belts, Ironhide?"
"If I can't do it Prime, nobody can!" the black plated mech boasted as Mach Alert rolled his optics shutting off his terminal, and gesturing to his data-pad.
"I'll load the new software I created for Teletraan into his main core." The black and white mech said as he strode from the room with acknowledging clicks from his superior and fellow officer.
On his way into the bowels of the shuttle, he passed the tracker, Hound as he jogged towards the Rec-Room, obviously late for the crew movie by his worried expression, both acknowledging each other with a polite flare of their magnetic fields. With a sigh he passed the emergency stasis pods and came to a heavily fortified door which he had to enter several high access codes into before the shuttle finally let him into its core.
The core itself was a giant orb of black metal with light filaments crisscrossing its surface, special neural reactors scattered around the sphere occasionally let out a blast of lightning into the black substance, flooding Teletraan's brain with sensory information and the general whereabouts of his crew as the shuttle's processor rotated anticlockwise on its axis to prevent itself from overheating with each new blast of information.
Mach Alert gripped his data-pad slightly tighter, weary of the living ship that had no spark and asked Teletraan for a fragment of his processor to download the new, Decepticon resistant hacking codes.
The orb, rotating quietly on its axis glided to a stop, the reactors that fed the processor with information like a neural network, powering down as a small chunk of the sphere broke off and hovered over to the SIC.
White, claw tipped fingers grabbed the warm, glass like metal, the light filaments of the fragment extending out like tiny worms burrowing out of an apple to link with the data-pad, which cycled on with a casual buzz of static.
As the joor passed, he received an urgent ping of his communicator from his Prime. "I'm nearly done. Give me a few breems." He muttered, as he carefully grafted the new coding into the fragment of the Shuttle's processor.
He never got a chance to finish his work when Orion himself barrelled through the door to Teletraan's processor and yanked his SIC away from the hull, making the Praxian drop his data-pad and the fragment to the floor as he was dragged back through the closing door by his scruff bar, his doorwings flared in shock and fright, the doors hissing shut as the room exploded in flying metal and fire, the data-pad and the vital fragment flying off into the recesses of space as Teletraan threw up his energy shields to protect the remaining bulk of his processor.
"What the frag is going on?" Mach Alert called, his helm ringing with the complex explosion of various emotions trying to force themselves through his battle computer, the world spinning slightly as the emergency ruby lighting flooded the corridor.
"It's a meteor shower!" Orion shouted over the blaring of the alarms, the crew scrambling to the stasis pods that lined the walls, some already beginning the stasis sequence, shutters of Cybertanium closing over the clear view glass of the stasis evoked mechs, protecting them from harm. "Get in the pods now!"
"Did you send an SOS to Cybertron?" Mach Alert loudly asked back as Ironhide herded the last of the crew towards the Stasis Room, having put the shuttle on Autopilot to buy them some time to get into the pods.
"We don't have time." Ironhide puffed through his vents, shaking his helm as the Praxian began to fret. "Teletraan's failing he can barely keep us on a straight course."
"Mach Alert, can't you activate an SOS beacon on your Data-pad?" Orion asked as the last of the crew entered stasis, safe in the reinforced pods, the Prime, his SIC and his weapons master entering their own pods as Mach Alert shook his helm in resignation.
"It is lost with the fragment of Teletraan's processor."
"Very well." Orion Prime sighed leaning into the gel of the stasis pod as it sealed the officers within, "recharge well my friends…"
"Meister," Mach Alert whispered as the glass closed over him, the pod powering up as cables linked with his systems urging him into a dreamless recharge, "Goodbye, my love."
The Autopilot, Teletraan himself, began to fail without the fragment of his processor, the alarms cutting off with a shrill dying whine as the engines shuddered, coughed fire finally belched smoke into the cosmos. The shuttle began to list onto its side, rolling over like a beached whale as a nearby planet caught the shuttle in her gravity fields. The shuttle, a bright neon orange, christened 'The ARK' by its creators so many vorns ago, fell into the blue and green planet's atmosphere with a dying groan, his occupants locked deep in frozen slumber and they crashed into an expanse of water, skidding along the sandy bottom, creating a deep trench, and finally grinding to a halt in an underwater cavern of a tiny landmass that would one day become known as Dinobot Island…
