The Diego Diaries: Volley (dd6 602)
=0=Outside
They formed up in pairs, the shuttles, all of them striking out some many kilometers apart as they began to search in the slag for the enemy which were numerous and well armed. Apparently, Shrike found his match and ended up in a cage with inhibitor devices attached to his major joint nodes. It was a Decepticon practice, not that of the Autobots but was effective if not somewhat painful for the unlucky slagger that had to endure it. Finding and taking him in was the luckiest thing ever to happen to the maniac though he would be the last to agree.
Sun and Jack went in with a beta team shuttle apiece as partners while Blackjack, Raptor, Ironhide, Hercy, Kup, Steiner, Whirl, Lissie and Flint who came after squaring away his slag at Fort Apache regarding receiving through transit the enemy prisoners that were on their way to prisons on Mars, Cybertron and the local group. Pairing up with beta, the alpha dogs made their way forward.
:Ironhide:
:Which one?:
:Infant:
:Ironhide here, Appa:
:Keep your nose assembly clean. I spy echoes on your starboard. Sending coordinates as of now, infant: Sun said as he typed them in and hit send. Just as he did the sight of a battleship passing just over his two shuttle team could be seen on the sensors as well as through the forward port.
"Well, well," Sun said with a grin. "Just so you know, I have a battleship just overhead and when I'm done, I have one and you children will have zero." He glanced at his gunners who were taking their stations. "Shall we go to the dance, boys?" he asked with a smirk.
"Sure." -everyone on board.
So they did.
=0=Jack
"Frag Sun," Jack said with a grin. "Lissie. You there?"
:Off your starboard side: Lissie replied with her dryly humorous voice. :What do you want to do, Jack?:
"We can't let Sun get a head start. We'll never hear the end of it. You're closest to him. What's his locate?" Jack asked as he sat down in front of the tactical sensor console.
:Here you go. See ya there: she said as her shuttle and companion ship broke off to head that way.
"Well, that wasn't nice," Jack said with a chuckle. "Steiner, your sister is a greedy guts. Shall we join them?"
:We're on our way now, slowpoke. Steiner out because he's too busy finding and shooting the enemy to pass the time with ya, Jack: Steiner said with a guffaw.
At that point six shuttles were blazing their way toward what they thought was a lone battleship.
=0=Prowl, Prime and Hardie
They sat around the command table looking at the advanced battle tactical data pad, APTD if they were Americans, one that covered the entire table and was designed to feature fast moving battles to plot strategy. "Are they ever serious?" Prowl asked Hard Drive.
"Never," Hardie said with a grin. "Well, maybe when arguing over who counted coup on a target and who is lying. Then they can get pretty heated."
"Does it come to blows?" Devcon asked as he sat with them. He had been in the fighting, then came back aboard to run sensors.
"Sometimes. Then they get drunk, get maudlin and hug it out," Hard Drive said with a grin. "Those two are peas in a pod as the humans say. They're both over the top but very serious mechs even so."
"So it seems," Prowl said with a smirk. He checked the flight paths on the data pad. "It appears that a target has been acquired. Six shuttles are zooming in."
"They probably have a running tab bet going," Hardie said as he opened a channel. "What have you found?" he asked.
"A FRAGGING FIRE FIGHT! SEND THE CAVALRY!" Sun's voice could be heard over the sounds of others on the line laughing and shouting. Then it cut out.
Prime glanced at Hardie who was studying the data pad. "What do you suppose is going on?"
"They must have found a battleship. Or six," Hardie said.
"Take us in, General," Prime said as he glanced out the windows nearby. "Close but not quite there. Tell the launch teams down below to ready missiles on my command, Prowl."
Prowl rose to walk to fire control as Hardie moved to the conn. He leaned in with the pilot to discuss the way forward as a battle group gathered around Prime to escort. They were into the dense soup ahead in seconds.
=0=Ratchet and Phobos
He walked to the command deck as the last of the enemy wounded and those lucky enough to not be were escorted away by prison ship, medical transport or bridge. Walking to the command chair that was technically his, Ratchet looked at the area around him. Salton Sea was gone. "Where's Prime?"
"He's pursuing a fire fight with the battle group," a youngling mech from the Home Guard replied. "He left with escort."
"Fraggers. They didn't take me. Open a channel to Salton Sea, infant," Ratchet said. The kid did. "Ratchet to Prowler."
:What, slagger. I'm busy:
"Well, aren't you just a little ray of sunshine," Ratchet said. "Where are you? Can I get there by bridge. My work is done here. These servos … these healing servo-..."
:You don't know how to be normal do you?: Prowl replied.
"I use you for my inspiration," Ratchet replied to the general laughter of everyone on the bridge.
:I sent the coordinates to the ship bridge. Hurry up or the signal might get bounced and you'll end up somewhere else:
"On it, my queen," Ratchet said as he hoofed it to the door and the elevator down to the bridge room.
Revo watched him go with a grin, then assumed command. Sitting on the command chair, he glanced around. "Get on it, infants. Fraggers wait for no mech."
They did.
Ratchet hustled through the space bridge, then stepped out on a ship. It was a corridor and no one was around. That was both fortunate and unfortunate for him. The corridor and ship wasn't Salton Sea. It was a battleship in the armada of Pulsar.
Glancing at the writing on the wall, a sub dialect for the guttural squawk that was the official Decepticon language, he knew he wasn't in Kansas anymore. Hustling at the sound of approaching ped falls, he pried open a door and entered, closing it behind just in time. As he did, a squad of enemy soldiers ran past heading for the torpedo room for the fight ahead.
=0=Moments later
"Has Commander Ratchet come aboard?" Prowl asked his officer in charge of the bridge room over a comm line.
:We didn't receive him, Commander. We got a bridge here but no one came through: the voice down below replied.
Prowl frowned, then called Phobos. "Prowl to Phobos bridge room."
:Here, Commander: a voice replied.
"Where is Commander Ratchet?" Prowl asked.
It was silent a moment, then the voice returned. :Isn't he there? We sent him through a moment ago:
Prowl glanced at Prime who looked up with surprise and alarm. "No. Check the system. Find him."
It was silent a moment as Hardie, Prime and Prowl waited. The voice came back. "Commander, we did a tracer check and we sent Commander Ratchet through but the … the interference steered him to a different place than the one we wanted. Both ships, Salton Sea and the battleships in the enemy armada are of a type in profile. It appears that the radiation and electronic interference has sent him to the wrong ship. Commander Ratchet is on an enemy ship. We're trying to locate where that is and which one. Stand by."
They sat riveted to the spot, then Prime glanced at their pilot. "Take us in fast. Locate on General Ironhide's shuttle, pilot."
The pilot would. It wouldn't be pretty.
=0=The ugliness out there
They came out of their nebula cocoons about the same time, big ships and small heading straight for each other in the static filled wretchedness of the battle field. Two battleships were running side-by-side, their guns doubling the area between them that they could cover for targets.
Six battle shuttles came out of their own fog and two of them were in a collision course with the nearest and biggest of the two battleships. They flew into them and smashed even as their pilots slammed on the brakes and threw them into reverse. It was enough to prevent a fiery explosion and instant death but not enough to stave the crews from being bounced out again into the vacuum, most of them abandoning ship swiftly with their battle hardened reflexes.
Sun who saw them fly out, most of them veteran enough to jump when the inevitable loomed before them flew in with guns blazing. They stitched the side of the nearest battleship blowing out the view ports down the entire length of it. The other battleship was unable to assist the first given the targeted one was between it and the enemy. They continued onward helpless to act. The interference of the nebula was affecting everyone's targeting computers and they were no exception. It would take manual shooting to land enough blows to be effective and that was the glory of the shuttles.
The big battleship had taken two hard knocks as shuttles collided, blowing holes in the hull as it dragged them along. Mechs were flying away, some of them towing others as Lissie came up hard to offer them transport. As the Autobots streamed toward her vessel, the other one commanded by Raptor was breaking up, throwing out its guts in a fiery trail as it was dragged.
Raptor and his crew were thrown out, all of them. He gathered up those closest to him, then they went for the others. When they got them, they made for a big ice block that was flying in the direction they needed to go, away from the fury all around them. As they did, a shuttle flashed past to lay into the dying battleship. It was arcing lights, electricity and broken bits and pieces. Hercy was giving them cover as the other remaining shuttles flew back, then around to come up on the battleships' vulnerable side, the rear tail section. Opening up, they began to lay down fire on both.
Given the space, speed and fury with which this was unfolding, smaller ships had the upper hand without a doubt. The only thing the battleships could do to save themselves against the stinging fury of the shuttles was to run. One of them was actually accomplishing that very thing. The other … it was dying in convulsions and fire.
=0=Prime
"Dev, can you spot his transponder on either of those two ships?" Prime asked tensely as Salton Sea came into the scene from far enough away to not be on anyone's targeting screen yet.
"I'm looking, Optimus," Dev said tensely.
It was then that two cruisers and three shuttles from Pulsar's armada came into view from the opposite direction, all of them beginning to assert evasive maneuvers. It would be spectacular to watch them break up formation and begin their long turns. It would be even more spectacular to see Omega and Xantium Supreme come out of the darkness behind them with their arms outstretched and their servos and claw arms reaching for anything they could grab.
It was like someone had let off a roomful of explosives with the shattering repercussions hitting everyone everywhere at the same time. The fury outside had to be seen to be believed.
"I got him, Prime," Dev said as he glanced up to the big mech nearby.
"Can we get him? Which one is he on?" Prowl asked with a tense voice.
"That one," Dev said as another battleship slipped out of the darkness into view.
"Frag," Prowl said as the klaxon went off all over the ship.
=0=On a battleship not called Salton sea
He huddled in the closet deducing that the interference of the area had gotten him a wrong turn. He decided to do what a scientist, veteran soldier and lifelong Iaconian hooligan would do in those circumstances. He was going to find the soft underbelly of this ship and rip its guts out.
Glancing up, he saw a duct cover. He would remove it, then crawl inside. Given that this ship and his own, Phobos were of a type, it wouldn't take long for him to find where he wanted to go. He disappeared into the darkness with very little sound as the ship's klaxons went off all over the vessel.
=0=Out there
Raptor and his crew made the ice boulder and spiked their leads into its cold surface. A count was made and everyone was there. Some were hurt. Most weren't. All were pissed. They rode the boulder sending their pick up signals and watched the hoo-haw unfolding everywhere …
Lissie leaned into the torque as her shuttle swerved a depth charge counter measure from the vessel ahead that exploded against space debris nearby. They were going in over the fleeing battleship, not the one currently self destructing behind them. Her partner shuttle and the one commanded by Kup was helping her blast the slag out of the vessel who seemed only interesting in shaking them …
Blackjack and Ironhide with their two shuttles pursued the fleeing battleship in time to run into a trio of massive supply and tanker vessels who had come together to figure out what and where to do, go, exist, surrender and/or blow up. Swerving hard, they missed plowing through the main fuel ship …
Prime stared at the map, the battleship still within range beginning to blow itself up in its death throes and as he did he saw Zee and Xantium grab the newest battleship to arrive on the scene, the one that held Ratchet …
… "Muahahaha," Ratchet whispered to himself. He had found the room he wanted. It was a vast corridor of massive bundles of cables that ran everything. All he had to do was cut them up and the ship was over. He grinned. "I don't think that'll be too hard," he said as he grounded himself.
Then he unsubbed a huge rotating blade. Grinning like the juvenile delinquent that he was, he walked into a promising bundle and began to saw with abandon …
=0=TBC 2-27-19 :D 2TIM4EVR edited 3-1-19
Klaxon: a loud blaring and pulsating siren that is designed to signal trouble, usually a collision when a ship makes one.