The Diego Diaries: Slag (dd6 597)
This was supposed to post last night and didn't. It could be that we're close to having to go to Diego Diaries 7. :{
=0=Deck side to the Phobos
Devcon slid to a halt before the hangar deck, then broke the energy screen that kept vacuum out of the ship. Setting down on the deck gently, he waited until Springer was eased onto a gurney before slipping back out to take off again. He'd jetted a message to Prowl, then headed back to the battle scene releasing coordinates he'd tracked to Prime of the whereabouts of several battleships and a fighter transport that he'd seen inside the nebula.
Ratchet walked alongside the gurney as it hustled down the hallway heading for an emergency suite. Sliding inside, Ratchet directly plugged into Springer, listening to and watching a screen inside his chassis as data flowed in.
Springer could turn his helm but nothing else. All the rest was inoperable and he felt like lead. "What's the problem, Ada?" he asked with a tight tense voice.
Ratchet continued, then glanced downward. "You must have gotten clocked in the back. It sprung a nexus. We have to replace it, then let it reboot and assimilate. Until then you're flat on your aft. No arguments."
"I already am," Springer said with some relief. "We got slagged. Everyone is still out there and Sun floated off riding a turret gun."
Ratchet stared at Springer, then laughed loudly. "That sounds like him!" Ratchet grinned, then turned to an orderly. "We need to do this one now." He looked at Springer, then pulled a meter. "Nighty-night," he said with a gigantic smile.
All the lights went out and at Casa del Springer no one was home.
=0=Sun
It was debatable if the two battleships could even spot him in the debris field let alone steer toward him. He estimated their arrival and debated gutting one of them as he found himself drifting underneath their flight plan. If he did, would they see him? Would them come out and look around? It was really fragged where he was floating so it seemed reasonable that if he stitched the slag out of a battleship's tender underbelly, the place where a lot of important stuff like engines and electrical junctions were laid down, they wouldn't know who did it especially if he powered down immediately. Given the static out here, he would look just like any other floating debris.
Maybe.
He grinned, then made up his mind. When the ships began to pass over, Sun opened up and ran a stripe of hell down the length of the vessel closest to him before shutting down his weapons. He could feel sensors swinging around him searching as the ships tried to figure out what had happened. He was missed as he huddled close to the gun itself.
However, he HIMSELF hadn't missed the ship. That fragger was starting to come apart at the seams.
Of course, it did so nearly overhead of his current position. Glancing around, Sun jumped from his gun, then jetted as fast as he could toward a huge piece of some unlucky ship's aft end. He reached the edge of it just as the cruiser began to buckle with interior explosions. Creeping inside, he stared through a gash in the panel in front of him, a very strong cybertaniun steel hull that was several inches thick.
What was happening with the stricken battleship was epic.
And the other one? It wasn't doing so good either.
=0=Hercy and the City of Helex
Hercy considered their predicament. He could feel sensors on his exoskeleton and deduced that the only mechanisms that could do that through all of this were metrotitans.
Prime was seeking them out.
What they would do in here was look for prey, their own side or leave. Given that they had no idea where they were the chances of accomplishing any one of those goals was 100%.
They motored along with guns online and sensors flung wide. That was how they noted a pair of battleships bearing down on them in the mess.
"Well, well, well," Hercy said softly as he stood up to walk to the view port in the bow forward of the pilot. "Look at what we got here."
Everyone did and that was when they noticed heavy gunfire from the middle of the debris field that stitched the undercarriage of one of the vessels. That ship must have been struck in a critical place or three because it began to explode, implode, buckle up and spew its guts into space.
The battleship running with it was peppered and sprayed as big chunks flew off the stricken ship to land on it.
Hercy and his crew stared in wonderment. As they did, they didn't notice a big flat panel of cybertanium flying their way without any visible means of locomotion.
=0=Seekers
They arrived directed by Dev's marker beacon. :Need a lift?: Cloudburst asked with a grin.
Drift pushed off and latched onto Red Wing. :Springer was hit. I need a fast taxi to Phobos:
Everyone glanced at Drift sharply, then Red Wing signaled the group. :Bring everyone to Salton Sea. I'll take Drift to Phobos: With that, Red Wing blasted off with Drift hanging on tightly.
The others watched, then looked at the remaining crew. :Let's go. We have to find what's going on out here: Cloudburst said. :We're down three shuttles and everyone else is running around lost:
:Frag: Hoagie said. :We have to find Sun, too. Ironhide will be fragged if we don't:
:We're on it: Cloudburst said as Sim, Shel, Boomer and Slate hooked up with a Seeker themselves. They all sped out swiftly heading for Prime and the battle group as they followed fixed buoy markers back.
=0=Phobos
They landed on the hangar deck as Drift thanked Red Wing. He ran for the elevators and disappeared. Red Wing watched him go, then transformed to fly back out again. Things were fragged at both ends of this pony keg, he thought as he disappeared into the darkness outside. At no time did it cross his processor that he was feeling genuine warmth and sympathy for an Autobot.
=0=Hercy
"What you wanna do, Hercy?" Saylur, a mech who had been a pilot with the 'Cons asked. He was a big mech from Tarn who knew Megatron when he was younger and thus believed him until the 'Cons came apart at the seams. Now he was on the informal short list floating around the colony of those who had 'dibs' on his carcass if he ever came back.
That guy.
"I think I want to know what that is," Hercy said as he nodded to a swiftly 'floating' piece of hull that was flying toward them in a straight line. It hadn't been propelled by the battleship cracking up. This was coming toward them from another direction.
"Let me see," Saylur said as he calmly scanned it. "I think someone's behind it. What say we see."
Hercy who liked Saylur's style nodded calmly. "Good idea. I think you should, infant," he said to a wide-opticed youngling Seeker who was of all things 'regular army'.
For now.
On occasion, there would be one, usually someone who was a former 'Con, young and pissed at someone in the air force. This kid had the same problem apparently and usually, they found their way back to the air wing at some point. Given his relative age and swiftness with hand guns, he was being 'allowed' to 'experiment' with 'something new' until he cooled off.
That guy.
"Go with Twister, Callum," Hercy said to a big grizzled mech who'd been regular army from before Twister was a gleam in his atar's beady optic and was pissed at everyone.
"Got ya, boss," he said as he rose, unsubbed a bazooka-sized gun, then glanced at the kid. "How about a ride, infant. Show me your stuff."
Callum only had a soft spot for kids and the elderly. The rest bugged him, the anti-social slagger with a fondness for peanut brittle.
And dogs. He really, really liked dogs.
Twister rose, then walked to the door. He transformed, then Callum hopped on. They jetted off straight for the swiftly moving steel plate.
Hercy watched through the view ports with everyone else. This could actually be great.
=0=Zee Supreme
He followed two battleships that knew he was there. All around him were other ships and even though he didn't know if they were friend or foe, he didn't care. He was zeroing in on the ship closest to him. They were shooting at him but he was dodging easily. Their targeting systems were affected by the radiation all around them so their shots were mostly wild. They were probably even 'ghosting'. Signals were fragged so he was clear in his pursuit that their systems were reading him here, there and everywhere as his signal bounced around, drawing their fire to phantom Xantiums.
He reached it, then loomed up behind to grip the tail section in his servos. Mechs were swarming out of the ship to run for surface gun emplacements or to shoot him full on with their hand weapons. It was ineffective and suicidal but he gave them points for guts. He pulled off two gun emplacements, then gripped the tail section. Twisting his massive servo and claw grip, he wrenched the entire thing completely off.
He fell backward which was merciful because fire and plasma raged out of the open section in front of him. Tossing the tail section away, he swarmed after them. Landing on the hull, he magnetized, a feature that probably pulled every lose metallic thing inside and many bolted down directly to the spot under his gigantic peds.
He looked like he was surfing on the vessel as the entire complement of single and twin fighter ships flew out of the hangar deck. They came at him with guns blazing just as Lissie, Steiner and Whirl showed up after following the marker buoys to this spot. Magnetized to their hull both inside and out like barnacles on a ship's hull, manacled enemy fighters watched with horror as the shuttles slowly slid to a halt.
Xantium Supreme was swatting at fighters that buzzed around him in a frenzied cloud, shooting him with their guns. He looked like a giant claw handed King Kong as he knocked them down with swipes of his appendages. They shattered or sputtered off, falling away like flies swatted into oblivion.
Jack and Steiner who were standing by a view port watching the show glanced at each other. "You don't see that everyday," Jack said.
Steiner nodded. "No, you sure don't," he replied.
Ironfist, the official chronicler and all around military historian of the Wreckers glanced from the sight outside to the two calm mechs commenting on the show. He would have swooned from the awesomeness everywhere he looked if he wasn't taking everything down as swiftly as he could for his new book.
It would include a detailed chapter on The Immortals.
Sometimes, you're born to greatness and other times, you have greatness thrust upon you. This was one of those times.
=0=Phobos
Drift stood beside the theater door outwardly calm but inwardly shaken. When Ratchet came out, he straightened his slouch to tense alertness. "How is he?"
"Great. I replaced a node that was bashed. He never told me that he had an old injury there that could have been fixed EASILY if SOMEONE had TOLD ME. It weakened the plating there in his armor, the slagger." Ratchet grinned. "You look cute when you're petrified."
Drift actually looked sick with relief. "Can I see him?"
"You can," Ratchet said as he slipped his servo through Drift's arm. "They're taking him to a ward. Come with. We'll go together. By the way … have you seen Ironhide?"
"I haven't seen slag. Not even the debris that destroyed our ship. It's been a long hard orn out there, Ada," Drift began as the two walked to the elevator. The doors slid shut behind them.
=0=Zee
He followed the two battleships, both of them wounded but not mortally. As he did, he noted a number of other ships that were nearby and mentally listed them.
Two or more battleships limping along ahead. Maybe as many as three more farther away.
A troop carrier with fighter capability.
Several battle shuttle sized fighter ships, number unknown at the moment.
Two or more cruisers, none of them injured.
Support ships, three of them he could detect, all heavily armed.
A fighter transport that had not launched anything yet.
He grinned.
Nine ships confirmed. Just enough for him. The rest of the armada would have to pick up the scraps when he was finished. With a maddened roar that only Primus could hear, Xantium Supreme turned on the gas and with his fist breaking trail ahead of the rest of him, he blasted off to punch a battleship in the ass.
Wreck 'n rule.
=0=TBC 2-19-19 2-24-19
ESL: What is a Pony Keg?
A quarter barrel, more commonly known as pony keg, is a beer vessel containing approximately 7.75 U.S. gallons (29.33 liters) of fluid. It is half the size of the standard beer keg and equivalent to a quarter of a barrel.