Chapter 2:
It had taken a few hours to navigate through the canyons but thanks to Windblade, it took much less time than it could have on the ground alone. Now they were driving down a highway in the general direction of where the smoke had been coming from. Windblade was high above them, observing the terrain for anybots or signs of the ship.
"Windblade to Drift. No sign of anyone or the escape pod so far. We are still several miles out and about halfway to the crash site now. I'm a little concerned that we haven't seen anyone else yet."
"The others may have already beat us to the pod by now. Despite our landing being incredibly fortunate and your navigation skills saving us a lot of time, we were the first ones out the air lock and the farthest from the landing sight." Drift reassured her.
"At least we have short distance coms up again. We only have a five-mile range on the ground, but Windblade's height grants us another two miles of radius. Thankfully the night does provide a little more cover for her low flight." Fixit was overlooking his scanner for signs of life, it wasn't going well.
"Fixit, there's a town up ahead. Maybe we should pull over and see if there's any tech we can borrow to heighten our coms range to find the others." Windblade suggested.
"Thats a good man-clan-PLAN!" Fixit managed after a moment.
"Yeah, that's a great idea, Windy!"
"Sideswipe!" Windblade almost jumped out of her turbines hearing his voice over the coms.
"Hey, Sweet Blades! Did you miss me? Jazz and I are just pulling into Jasper right now. We can wait at the service depot here for you." He responded in high spirits
"Okay, don't ever call me that ever again. But it IS too quiet up here, how's it going Slick?" She corrected him, but she let his new nickname for her slide like water off her wings. She was glad to hear him and in real high spirits too.
"Oh, you know, been better been worse. Anyone with you?"
"Drift and Fixit. Is it just you and Jazz?"
"Just us. How did you get your coms working again?"
"That was me!" Fixit chirped from Drift's passenger seat, "It's really just broadening the radio frequencies to catch as many as we can. But it's pretty limited in range and abilities. I'm still getting interference, possibly from the pod itself but we can't be for poor-lore-" Clank, "SURE yet."
"Anyone hear from Grim or Strongarm? Any of the Mini's?" Jazz asked.
"No, nothing." Drift responded.
"I think the pod might have a battery powered scrambler, if its active we may not be able to hear from anyone for a few more hours." Jazz prompted, "But maybe if there's anything left of the pod, and we disable it we can head for the Autobot base." He explained.
"Base? You mean Optimus Prime's old war base?" Drift asked.
"If you haven't seen the sign yet, it marks the fifteen-mile mark. Yeah, we're on the Lieutenant's former home turf." Jazz confirmed.
As if on cue a sign came into Drift's headlights, the same sign Jazz and Sideswipe passed a few minutes ago. Indeed, it said Jasper was 15 miles away.
"We will be there momentarily, are either of you injured?" Drift asked.
"A few shotgun holes and we'll be picking farm debris out of our rims for the next month, but we'll be fine." Jazz answered.
"Shotgun holes?!" Fixit squealed.
Jazz confidently reassured him, "Yeah, a little buff and its like it didn't happen. But there's a farm about twenty miles southeast of town we can't ever show our hoods in ever again. Farmer Joe doesn't like flashy cars crashing through his barn."
Darkness had fallen and luckily, Slipstream had a small light given to him by Fixit that was proving very useful. Strongarm's lights where on to keep the minicon in clear light while he pressed just far enough ahead to choose their direction. They had lost the daylight a while ago but Slip doggedly followed the canyons in the direction he had last seen the pilar of smoke. He still had functional optics and had a pretty good sense of direction thanks to Drift's teachings of Earth's stars. Their progress was slow but with Strongarm's slow pace they couldn't press too hard.
"Strongarm, how are your injuries?" the little red minicon asked over his shoulder.
"My headcase is still foggy, but I think the energon stopped flowing, finally." She answered honestly.
Slipstream looked back at the cop car and eyed the long trail of energon that had been flowing from her knee, indeed she wasn't dripping much now but she had lost a pretty good amount by now. He was no doctor, but he worried that being upright wasn't helping her headcase and impleaded her energon flow to it. He couldn't imagine she had lost so much energon for her systems to start shutting down yet, but she probably lost more than he liked to think about.
"I'm still not so sure how far away we are from the pod yet." He told her sadly.
"A few miles I'm guessing." She estimated.
Slip knew that she was in a lot of pain, she put up a strong front a lot of the time, but he was beginning to worry that she might not make it. Not that she was on the verge of going offline, but her injuries could be far worse than they knew. Just by listening he could hear her steps slowing and her limp getting worse. Walking on a damaged limb was no doubt causing more damage, but it had been almost two hours since she had fallen off the cliff and bashed her headcase and in those hours her 'brain fog' as humans called it hadn't let up.
If he didn't get her to Fixit soon she might need to sit down and wait for him to go ahead to fetch him. But he couldn't just leave her here! She had protected him in the fall, leaving her behind all alone would be one of the greatest dishonors he could ever commit, and he'd never live it down.
Slipstream halted and Strongarm almost stepped on him.
"Fork in the road?" She asked,
"No, it's a crossroad. Three canyons in different directions, neither are in the direction we need." He explained.
"We go with the one that's closest and hope for another turn." She prompted.
"But we've already had to back track twice, Strongarm I'm not sure just how much time we have to keep going until you simply MUST stop." He voiced his concerns.
"We just keep driving, Slipstream. Keep driving." She encouraged him, trying to play off her damage.
Slipstream sighed then looked at the canyons again, one clearly strayed to the left and ahead for some long ways, the second and third went right and forward. Neither went straight ahead like they needed.
Something caught his attention from above them.
"Wait..." His tone was serious as the dark around them, "Turn your lights off."
They were left in the dark with nothing more than the light of their optics. Slipstream waited for it again.
There. Two humming motors from the top of the canyon wall to their right shook him from his pause.
"Quick, against the cliff!" He ran to the side and gestured to her to follow closely. She struggled to move with his same urgency, but she followed him. Slipstream gently pushed at her boot to make her back up further. Leaning her back to the wall was nice for a moment to get some of her weight off her axles, but Slipstream drew his Naginata in front of her protectively.
"What is it?" She asked hushed.
"Someone is approaching the ledge." He explained.
"Is it Drift? Or Sideswipe?"
"No, one of them is too heavy."
"Decepticons?" She seemed to perk up a bit, but her optics where still a bit out of it.
"Thats my fear." He admitted.
The engines drew closer and closer to them, until they halted directly above them. There they stopped and the engines cut, followed by large metalic footsteps confirming these where Cybertronians, but the beeping of a scanner... wasn't familiar to them.
"It's somewhere down there?" A deeper voice asked, probably looking down into the canyon.
"Seems like it." a second slightly lighter voice responded.
"Any sign of the Autobots yet?"
"Doesn't look like it. Why? Looking for a rematch already?"
"That day can't come soon enough."
That was all the confirmation Slipstream and Strongarm needed. These where not friends. Worse yet, they were starting to lower themselves off the cliff edge and preparing to slide down, right on top of them. Without a word they shifted away and started running as quietly as they could to the first canyon they saw. They ran until they got to a large boulder they could hide behind, at least for the moment. They peaked over the rock and watched as a large steel-gray and blue bot dropped into the canyon, followed by a smaller flashy red and gold bot. The later took out the scanner and started searching for something.
"Are they searching for us?" Slipstream squeaked,
"I don't think so..." Strongarm managed, "I don't think they know what fell from the sky, or that we're even here for that matter. Just stay down and if their equipment is working maybe we can follow them to the pod."
"Is that a good idea?"
"Maybe not, but we are in no condition to fight them ourselves. Hopefully they can take us right to our back-up, two against ten isn't great odds for them." She prompted.
They watched as the cons scanned the area for whatever it was, they were looking for. Until the larger bot seemed to spot something, he nudged the red con and gestured to something in front of them. The smaller con knelt down and seemed to pick up something and examined it. After a moment he stood and eyed something on the ground, the larger con following his gaze... slowly tracking towards the two hiding bots. Slipstream looked down and realized, Strongarm was not only still leaking but she had left a trail leading right to where they were hiding. He pointed to the trail that rounded the boulder and Strongarm's expression dropped, realizing what it meant.
"Come on out," The red con chastised, "Good news, if you're a Decepticon, your good friend Knockout can patch you up. No problem." He and the other bot started walking in their direction, "But if you're an Autobot," he purred on as the larger bot pulled out a large mallet within his armor, "My assistant Breakdown needs to practice his dissection."
"Thank Primus." Sideswipe muttered as he saw Drift pull up to the service depot.
"No word from the others yet?" Jazz asked him as he parked in front of them.
"No, still nothing." Fixit said rolling down the window still working on his info pad.
"Windblade is circling the town to see if she can find any equipment, we can use to boost our signals, so far she's had no luck." Drift explained.
"Probably not, this is a mid-nowhere dirt town. Anything remotely close to compatible with our tech is under 24-hour surveillance." Jazz confirmed.
"There might be somethings we can use back at the old base if we can get to it but I honestly don't know where it is from here." Sideswipe recommended, "After we find the others we should settle down until dawn when we get enough light to start looking. Fixit, do you know the coordinates Bee sent us to that day?"
"Not off the top of my cranium, but I do have a record of all the coordinates I have sent you to." He started sifting through messages in his data pad, "But I need an actual map to see where these go and where to start searching."
Everyone fell silent as a large hunter green truck pulled up a space or two away from them with loudspeakers raging some rock and roll number. As soon as the vehicle stopped, a young girl with pink shaded rocker hair leapt out of the truck and playfully played the drum solo on the front fender as she made her way to the small depot's front door. Behind her a younger boy with wild brown hair and red glasses slipped out with a note pad and pencil, he was seemingly unphased by his companion's antics. Then the music abruptly stopped.
"Awwww!" The girl wined.
"It's just paused." The firm deep voice was fitting for the truck, but it was a brotherly tone.
"Alright," she groaned "What's on the list, Raf? We got thirty minutes until closing."
"Let's see, copper wire, duct tape, voltage tester, extension cords, adapters, three large car batteries, car wax, and more zip ties."
The girl sighed, "Who would think the world would depend on car wax and duct tape?"
"Why wouldn't it?" Raf's voice dropped a little and pushed his glasses up on his nose as she looked over his shoulder at the list, "These are the links that keep the monitors alive to help save it. It mostly hinders the robots from space..."
"It still sounds weird to hear out loud."She remarked.
If either of them could have moved, every headcase would have turned to those kids. It couldn't be mear coincidence...
"You got the debit card Fowler gave us, right?" the girl asked,
"No, Jack does. He'll be here in a few minutes. We'll get started without him." With that the two of them walked into the store and through the windows the kids began picking up everything on their list. Moments later, a slick blue motorcycle pulled up alongside the green truck, a teen boy got off and removed his helmet.
"Hang tight Arcee, I'll be right back." He said... to no one in particular as he set his helmet on the seat.
"Well, I was just going to run wheelies up and down main street all on my lonesome, but I guess I can give you about five minutes." A female voice joked from who knew where... apparently an empty motorcycle.
Once the kid walked off and joined the other kids in the store, Bee's team was left wondering... how do you even ask if the vehicle next to you is Cybertronian? Jazz was closest to them and apparently-
"Small world, eh Bulk?"
"Holy-!" The truck literally leaped sideways over several empty spaces like a spooked house cat, his panels popping out as he tried to keep himself from transforming in public.
"Sweet Solus Prime!" The motorcycle spun around and immediately back peddled and crashed back into the green truck, nearly backing her tire up on his back fender, the helmet rolling across the parking lot.
There is no real way to explain how funny it was to watch vehicles literally jump in surprise. Jazz broke into uncontrollable laughter and Sideswipe tried but couldn't hold back his giggle fit.
"Sorry guys." The paler bot apologized honestly between his laughter.
"Wait... JAZZ?!" Bulkhead nearly screamed, as the two-wheeler pulled away from him.
"How's it going?" Jazz chirped as the two-wheeler gathered herself together.
"What in the name of the Primes are you doing here on Earth?!" The truck nearly screamed.
"Oh, you know, it's a great vacation destination." He teased, "My colleagues and I just crash landed about two or three hours ago."
"You arent alone?!" The motorcycle asked excitedly.
"No! Fancy feet over here is Sideswipe." He pulled back to let them see him a little clearer
"Hello!" Said red sports car greeted them happily,
"And past him is Drift and Fixit." He introduced the mini as Drift rolled his window down for them to see him more clearly.
"Nice to see more bo-bo-bo," clank, "Bots! Around here." Fixit greeted them warmly.
"Above us somewhere is Windblade. Say hello Windy!" Sideswipe turned his com on full volume for them to hear her.
"Uh, hello?" She asked curiously, not knowing the last few seconds of development.
"Um, hey! Nice to meet you?" Arcee greeted her back a little unsure of either how to respond to meeting someone over coms or she was left wondering what Sideswipe meant by 'above us somewhere'.
"Arcee, this is Lieutenant Jazz." the green truck introduced him eagerly, "His's unit backed us up in the later days of the war. He worked with Optimus through our ventures on the Ark." he explained, "Last I heard you were still with the Arc when we forged ahead to fortify a base on earth after the Battle of Aquatron and the Quintasons. W-what happened?"
"We-" Jazz actually seemed to stutter, "We got separated... and..." He didn't finish.
"Okay, we won't press." Arcee readily gave him an out not to explain, "All that matters is that you made it here. And... Although I can't promise anything peaceful I'm sure we can grant you asylum."
"That would be great! We could really use the assistance finding the rest of our troop."
"THE REST?" Bulkhead asked in shock.
"Um... yes?" Jazz answered.
"The help would be great, I can't find anything around here that we can use to amp our coms without infiltrating a human facility." Windblade observed from the air.
"An alliance sound optimum," Drift agreed, "You lead, and we shall follow."
The two of them where almost jumping off their tires with excitement. Arcee abruptly pulled away for a second to start rolling the helmet back to where she had been parked moments before, meanwhile the truck apparently called one of the humans inside.
"Hey, Miko. Hurry up we gotta bust back to base! No, not cons. Autobots! We got some debriefing to do!"
Through the window the teen girl jumped and glanced outside at them before rushing to the boys and quietly and excitedly told the boys to hoof it with their shopping. The kids seemed to all look back to the windows before briskly running to the checkout counter. Within a minute the kids ran out with their supplies and loaded up the truck before jumping into the cab. The elder boy pulled on his helmet and almost had to run and leap onto Arcee as she was already starting to back up out of the parking lot.
"Hey, hang on, Arcee!" He commented catching her excitement.
"New Bots! Where do we find them?" Miko excitedly looked out the window expecting to see something as they pulled out of the parking lot.
"Right here." Sideswipe pulled up alongside her on the two lane main street, rather eager to show off to new faces.
"Oh! You meant right HERE, RIGHT now!" Raf remarked seeing the red car pull up.
"Welcome to Earth! This is my partner Bulkhead and co-pilot Raf. Arcee and Jack are upfront, and the rest of the team is back at base. Welcome to Jasper!" Miko remarked gesturing to the dusty little town around them.
"Awesome! Name's Sideswipe." He introduced himself, "Jazz is on your left and that's Drift in the jacked up fenders."
"Excuse you, Sideswipe." Drift chided him.
"And Fixit is ridding Drift's shotgun seat. Windblade is up... somewhere." Sides explained poorly.
"Wait, up as in... Flying?" The littlest kid, Raf, asked.
"Yeah! Shes a real pro in the air." Jazz complimented her.
Miko gasped in excitement, "SHE?! Is she packing mistles? Or a mini gun?"
"Two heat seeking mistles and a machine gun, actually." Windblade responded over the coms.
"Whoo hoo! We finally have a flier on Team Prime!" She was practically leaping out of her seat.
"Team Prime? As in Optimus Prime?" Drift asked curiously as he followed close behind Sideswipe.
"Same guy." Arcee beamed from her lead position.
"How many Autobots are here exactly?" Jazz asked from behind Bulkhead.
Bulkhead seemed to take a minute to prepare his answer, "Five now. We... lost one a few months ago."
From Drift's passenger seat, Fixit seemed to realize something. He started searching something up on his info tablet. Jazz seemed to realize something also, he grew quiet as they continued out of town. Drift didn't let the realization resound to Bulkhead and Arcee, seemingly noticing something was going on.
"My condolences for your lost." Drift genuinely extended his sympathies.
"Thank you." Arcee accepted his gesture, seemingly not noticing the tension rising between the new bots.
"And... Are there any cons on this planet?" Jazz asked cautiously.
"Hundreds. They have us out gunned a few hundred to one each." Bulkhead grimly answered. A chill ran through them as they heard that answer. They had faced nearly a hundred escaped Decepticon convicts at once before but this... this sounded far more dire. Just the indication they had lost one of their own not too long ago was an immediate red flag.
"Well," Jazz stepped in deciding to change the tone a little to something a little brighter, "Not anymore."
"Thank goodness." Jack responded looking back at them all over his shoulder.
Sideswipe was close enough to see something in the teens face. There was something in that kid's eyes he'd never seen in anyone's face, and it was half obstructed by his helmet. But he could only describe it as... Relief. Maybe enen something like hope.
Which bore the question, what exactly had they crashed into?
Bumblebee was wedged under the console with his head lights on looking for the wiring to the scrambler, Jetstorm was attending him with tools or anything they could use as tools. Grimlock was searching the outside of the ship for anything resembling an antennae that could have been damaged and causing interference. Although they could easily drive back to the Autobot base, Bee was concerned that the others who would be headed for the pod would need their communications back up to tell them where to go, or the scrambler would hinder the base's equipment if they left it on.
"Hmm bip?"
"No, the light is off." Jetstorm spotted the mechanism Bee was looking at under the console.
"Nm?"
"No, no lights are on at all." He flicked the switches and found none of them were operational.
Grimlock returned from his search outside with somber news. "There's nothing out here. It wasn't finished when we got it but there's no sparking antennae or dishes. Nothing that I can see that would contribute to a scrambler."
"Hrrrrm!" Bee moved out from under the console with a chord in his hand. He pulled it a bit more and found the taped ends that lead to nothing. There was nothing powering ANYTHING that could scramble their signals. If the ship HAD a scrambler, it wasn't even powered, hadn't been before they made the jump.
"If there is nothing purposely blocking our signals, why are the coms not working?" Jet asked from his place on the console.
"Rrrm ynnn bep?" Bee asked Grimlock.
"Yeah, there's a bent-up dish on the right side. All the wires are attached as far as I can tell, but some of the metal got bent up in re-entry." He relayed what he had found on the outside of the pod.
"Mn mn, bllllipp? Nrnrnr hip beep beep." Bumble bee dropped the chord and started gesturing by unfolding his hands.
"I can try to bend it back but it won't be very pretty. I'll be as careful as I can." He admitted cautiously.
Bee stood up and pointed to the console, then out to the canyon outside, "Bmmmm bip. Mnp Mnp."
"Right. As flat as possible is all we need to get a signal to catch the dish." Grim repeated Bee with more confidence than he actually had in himself.
"I'll watch the monitors for frequency interference!" Jetstorm volunteered, quickly understanding the new plan.
"Beep!" Bee gave the minicon a thumbs up before diving under the console again to start attaching the chords as Grimlock went back outside.
This Bumblebee was certainly harder to understand but Grimlock had already found any Bumblebee was much more comforting than no Bee at all. Communication was rough but he already found it was much easier to repeat what Bee was trying to say back to him to relay his understanding, he was also forced to slow down and plan accordingly with him. As Grimlock walked outside and had to clamor up the side of the pod a ways to locate the satellite dish again and once he got it pried up and shaped to face out and away from the pod, he would need to bend the metal back over the holes that had been left unfinished in construction.
The new plan was to attempt to get a short-range communications array up and running and maybe they would be able to contact the others. Grimlock needed to restore the dish to an outward position and try to use any scrap metal he could find to temporarily patch any holes to catch any signals around them. Jetstorm was watching the control panel for the proper frequency to search with as soon as they got it powered up. Bumblebee had found the battery unattached to anything and was now hooking it up to the satellite and communications to provide power.
Lieutenant or not, he was still a good leader.
The dinobot started single-handedly gently prying the satellite away from the side of the pod he started gently prying it back up to its standing position where it could hopefully find better signals, watching to be sure he didn't clip the power chords inside. Thankfully, Strongarm had been teaching him some basics in technology to know how they worked and what to be careful of when working on specialized equipment. He had to prop the satellite out with a busted support beam due to only having one fully functional arm, but he didn't break it off the pod so that was a plus. Several of the panels on the satellite where either bent or missing, but for a bot of his size bending most of the parts with one hand back into place wasn't too much of a chore. He even got to yank a few panels off the side of the ship to repair the holes he couldn't fix. Grim had heard Drift say something along the lines of 'to build something you must destroy another' or something along those lines.
He really hoped his Teamie was alright. That all his teammates were alright. It had been hours since they had landed with no word from anyone, Grimlock knew he wasn't the fastest of the bots by any means but someone else should be there by now, right? Everyone else had vehicle modes and Windblade could FLY for Primus's sake, where were they?
"Zzzmp bip?" Bumblebee had come out to check on him. Grimlock realized he had stopped what he was doing and was starting to stew in his concerns.
"Oh, sorry. I... I'm just wondering how I'm going to get these panels up in place." He half bluffed, "I bent up an axle or something when we landed." He tried rolling his shoulder, experimentally testing his range. It jammed several times, and he was unable to raise his elbow to his shoulder, he couldn't actually make a fist either, some of his tension cables must be pinched somewhere.
"Hmn zzzp." Bee walked up and looked over his shoulder just as Jetstorm had, "Mp bzzz. Nrrr hm blp blp."
"I figured it wasn't good. But no leaking, right? I'll be just fine." He positively moved to pick up the nearest panel.
"Nrp zzzzzrrrrr." Bee walked behind the panel and helped him lift the other side. Without much instruction needed, Bumblebee helped him set the new panels in place, taking on the whole weight of the metal panels at times. But he never complained, he let Grimlock tell him where to go and how high to lift the parts and when. It was almost unnerving how compliant he was, letting Grim tell him what to do, he didn't know that the dinobot was technically not much older than the yellow bot, or at least he should be. Or that Grim was much more used to being told what to do by the yellow muscle car.
"Hiirrp mrrn?" Bee asked, noticing Grimlock seemingly staring at him when they were done fixing the satellite.
"Oh, no nothing's wrong... I don't think." He answered.
Bee tipped his head consideringly, unconvinced.
"I'm worried about the rest of my team." He admitted, "They should be here by now, or at least a few of them should. My boss sent us to... wherever we are now through a space bridge across the galaxy and who knows what's become of our mission? Getting separated on Earth may not be the worst thing, but... I'm starting to wonder what happened to our Lieutenant. One minute he was with us and the next we were crash landing and the only thing we could think of was to regroup at the wreckage because he wasn't giving any orders." Bee was listening carefully, Grimlock searched for the right choice of words to run with. He couldn't say EXACTLY was on his mind else Bumblebee might think he lost his mind.
"I'm afraid the others are hurt and I don't know where they are. I'm afraid that our boss is back on Cybertron by himself with no back-up." Grimlock explained exasperated. It was weird to say he was worried about Bumblebee when he was standing right next to him. But at the same time, there must be more to this Bumblebee then what met his optics... or audio receptors for that matter. He didn't want to hide his concerns from Bumblebee in any way. He was always honest with Bee and he didn't intend on changing that habit now.
Bee seemed to think for a moment before he responded, surprisingly with a question.
"Vrp hm hnm?"
"Yeah, he's a great leader. Probably the best I've ever known." Grimlock answered honestly.
"Rrrrp zzn blp mmrrnn bzzzn blp blp hrrrnn. Nnnrrrp hmm nzp nzp."
"You're right." He admitted, "For now, focus on finding the others. Make sure the team is okay, then we find the Lieutenant."
"Hurrrp zznn rm nnnp, zzzz blp." Bee gave him a thumbs up.
"And in the meantime, we have you and your team." Grim repeated and felt himself smile at the notion. Bumblebee was still the voice of reason and knew exactly what to say to calm his nerves when he started getting overwhelmed.
From the inside of the pod, they heard static coming from the console. They both froze and waited in anticipation, afraid to move in case they missed something in the white noise. They waited as Jetstorm made adjustments on the console to try and clear out the static. When the static cleared, before Jetstorm could even send out a message, they received one.
"Calling all Autobots! Anyone! Please, come in!" The voice was hushed but frantic.
Bumblebee's eyes widened with fear just before he rushed into the pod to look at the panel, Grimlock right behind him.
"Slipstream! Its Jetstorm! Where are you?!" Jet answered his call immediately, as Bee started tracking the location of the call.
"Jetstorm! Thank the Primes!" His relief was short lived, "Strongarm and I are backed down a canyon with two cons on our tail! Strongarm's in bad shape, please tell me there's someone who can back us up!"
"Slipstream! Where are you? I'll come back you up!" Grimlock answered,
"I-I don't know there was a three direction fork almost a mile back! We were following Ursa Minor as close as we could prior to the Cons chasing us further west." Slipstream answered as best as he could.
Bee ducked his head outside, looking for the star above them before running back to the console and typing in some commands. He opened up a second line of communications on a separate frequency and pulled out a map on the screen.
"Zzzrrp bllp hmn?" Bee asked.
"Do you know who the Cons are?" Jetstorm asked in his stead.
"Two vehicons, called Knockout and Breakdown. We've kept a good distance from them but we won't be able to lose them any time soon with the amount of energon I've been leaking for the last several miles." Strongarm responded, sounding very strained. Grimlock and Jetstorm knew she was NEVER tired. She had to be in rough shape.
"Grimlock and I are the only ones who've reached the pod so far, we have-," Jetstorm considered how to answer, "We're searching for your location just, hang on!"
Bumblebee was pulling up the map of their surroundings, quickly pulling up the map and pointing at the mesa where they were currently sitting, a few miles away the highway stretched through the desert. He followed the map further south along several canyons until he found another road running along another canyon several miles away. This canyon branched from three others, just as Slipstream had described. Understanding what he was doing Grimlock leapt up to move out.
"Hang on Strongarm! Slipstream! We're on our way!" He moved to run out the pod and go find her.
"Hrrrp! Blp!" Bumblebee stopped him and blocked his path,
"Bumblebee! I gotta go get her! She's hurt and Cons have her cornered!" Grimlock argued,
"My brother is out there! I have to go too!" Jetstorm added jumping off the console and rolling to right himself at Grimlock's side.
"Hmmn! Zrrp hmn blp blp nnnrr hhmm-hnnn!" Bee gestured to Grim's arm,
"I've had worse! You can't expect me to just sit here and wait for the others, there's no telling just how far out they are." Grimlock countered.
"Blip blip zzzzrr! Hrp hmm-nnnmm, zzp brr nnrr jjjkkk-nnnn." He responded urgently.
"But you going against two Cons? That's not a good plan going in outnumbered and I wanna bust whoever's after my teammates!" Grimlock argued.
"Jiiirr blp blp blp hrrr-mrrr bzzzz nnn-mmm hrrp. Krp nurr hm-hnn uurrk bzzzr." Bee pointed back at the monitor to the second line of communications he'd opened up.
"How long will that take? What if we can't reach your team before you get back?" Jetstorm asked, "What if we don't have a bridge yet?"
"Hnnn krr bzz-hmm." He confidently answered as he back peddled out of the pod and transformed without another word. Dust flew as he took off across the desert for the canyons.
"I'm holding you to that promise!" Grim shouted after him.
Hesitantly they returned to the panel and Jetstorm started running through several frequencies looking for the Bumblebee's team frequency to call for backup, as Bee told them too.
"I'll keep talking to Slipstream and Strongarm." Grim decided aloud.
"Please do. As long as we can hear them, we know they are...functional." Jetstorm's concern was clearly evident, "I'll try to get ahold of Bumblebee's team and call for a ground bridge."
Per Bumblebee's plan, he would fetch Strongarm and Slipstream and try to lose Knockout and Breakdown in the canyons, buying them time to reach his team for a ground bridge. The only one of them fairly fit for combat against two full sized cons was Bee, but as outnumbered as he was and given Strongarm and Grimlock's injuries they were resorting to immediate retreat as soon as they could.
"Do you really think he's going to be okay?" The dinobot asked the minicon.
"Thats our Lieutenant... right?" Jetstorm cautiously asked, "He's going to be okay... He's going to find them and he's going to get them here and we are going to bridge out of here." He continued to ramble as he typed on.
"Strongarm, how are you holding up?" Grimlock asked.
"Not great. Is anyone headed our way? I don't think I can keep ahead of them for much longer." She responded, her words where struggling a bit.
"How much energon have you lost?" Grim asked now his concern was growing.
"A lot. And I'm thinking she sustained substantial trauma to her cranium when we landed." Slipstream answered.
"It was the tumble off the cliff that did that damage." She admitted.
"We have back-up headed for you. So just... hang on as long as you can." Grim encouraged them.
Jetstorm seemed to be thinking about something as he typed through the frequencies, the look on his face wasn't just concern for his twin or Strongarm. It looked more like... Bewilderment? He noticed Grim looking at him and decided to voice what he was thinking.
"That IS our Lieutenant, right?" He cautiously asked.
It was clear that Bumblebee had no idea who they were, he could barely speak, and he was so much more... tentative and energetic than the confidant and much more collected Lieutenant they knew. But... he was STILL Bumblebee. He looked out for them, and he may not know it yet, but Grim felt a lot better taking the unintentional 'order' to stay behind JUST because Bee had told him to. He hated staying behind and out of the action, not being able to beat down rowdy cons. However, Bumblebee was still Bumblebee.
"Yeah, that's our Lieutenant." He confidently answered, "But I don't think he knows it yet."
Jetstorm's face rose with shock, it certainly sounded crazy. But Bee's actions where sound as ever, everything else was warped.
"What in the name of all thirteen primes have we bridged into?" The minicon asked, his voice starting to shake.
A buzz went off on the console Jet was standing on... and someone spoke.
"This is Autobot Outpost Omega One. Identify yourself."
They both jumped and screamed with relief.
"Hello, yes? We're here!" Jetstorm answered eagerly, "This is Jetstorm and Grimlock on a... erm... A stolen Decepticon space pod okay! Please, we need back up!"
"Hey hey, slow down!" The voice responded trying to calm him, "What's your damage?"
Then Grimlock's com line lit up again. Slipstream's tone had gone from anxious, to desperate.
"Grimlock? I hope that back-up isn't too far away... we just hit a dead end. And the cons are not far behind us."
