Like a fat man squeezing down a chimney, I come bearing gifts! Okay, so not really. It's just an update. Happy Freaking Holidays!
12. Dancing
Forwards Time Skip - Cybertron
It was another boring sentry shift right up to the point when a Decepticon Seeker literally popped out of thin air and opened fire. Sideswipe and Switchgear threw themselves down as plasma fire exploded around them, punching right through the thin walls and ceiling of the security tower. Then the Seeker was screaming past and a moment later something big went boom!
Sideswipe waited a moment to lift his head and peer through one of the holes blasted through the walls. Over on the other side of camp he saw a dissipating white cloud of lightening, saw the Seeker rolling away towards the north, and started swearing.
"What? What is it?" Switchgear said.
"Slag-face took down one of the generators."
"What?!"
The generators were the only things keeping the massive force field up and running, keeping the equally massive Decepticon hordes from opening up with the heavy artillery and swarming them. The 'field could operate with just two of its generators for a little while—long enough to get a third and fourth hooked up, anyway—but once the third one went down…
Another billowing cloud erupted as the Seeker nailed the second one.
"Slag!"
Sideswipe saw the slag-sucker turning, coming around, heading straight towards them.
"Switch, get up on that cannon and keep that flying pile of scrap away from us," he said.
Switchgear had already started towards the huge weapon. It had been designed with one thing in mind: taking down Fliers. The gunner sat perched on a seat with a set of triggers on each side—one for each of the double barrel cannons—and a target display in front. The cannon barrels themselves were almost two-and-a-half metras long and so wide that Sideswipe couldn't fit his arms around one of them. They fired a blast of high-density plasma that could eat right through even the toughest armor and, at full power, the gunner could keep up a steady barrage of two shots a nano-klick for up to three breems.
"Something's wrong."
Sideswipe felt something inside him sink and turned from his makeshift peephole just in time to see Switchgear kick the weapon.
"What?" he said.
"It's not working!" Switch said. Then the mech scrambled off and ducked down behind the weapon. A moment later and Switch started uttering the foulest curses Sideswipe had ever heard, ending with "… glitching bucket-humper cut through the power cord!"
Ah slag.
"You can't fix it?" he said.
"Not unless you want to be the conduit," Switchgear said.
The Decepticon was almost on top of them. The whine of his engines had grown to a deafening scream. In just a few nano-klicks, he'd pass right beneath them and blow up the third generator and then they would all die.
"Our weapons aren't going to be enough, are they?" Switch said.
"Nope."
"I hate Seekers. So, what? We just—hey! Where—"
There was no Light of Inspiration, no Epiphany. When later asked what, exactly, had gone through his processor, Sideswipe answered honestly: he just wanted to stop the Seeker.
"What the slag are you doing?!"
So Sideswipe vaulted over the short railing of the guard tower and started to fall. His timing was perfect. He saw a flash of silver and pale blue and then he hit hard, bounced twice, and rolled along until finally catching himself right before he tumbled off.
The Decepticon jerked and let out a surprised, "What the slag?"
"Hi," Sideswipe said and twisted around to hook his legs in a sort of reverse straddle of the Seeker's primary stabilizer fin.
"What are you doing?" the Decepticon said. He sounded baffled rather than angry, which Sideswipe couldn't blame him for. He'd never seen someone leap onto the back of an airborne Flier before and doubted that the 'con had either.
He didn't give the Seeker time to think about it.
"This," he said and shifted his arm and punched through the back armor, down into the engine.
"Agh!"
Sideswipe kept right at it, reaching in and tearing at the plating, ignoring the hot plasma licking around his fingers. The Decepticon dropped a little and shuddered. The next thing Sideswipe knew, his gyros went wonky and the world started to spin, blurring the sky and the ground and the explosions and the anti-Seeker fire tracing towards them all together. He had to pull his arm back to clutch at the fin as the slagger whirled through the air.
"Ah! Get off, get off you glitching, malfunctioning pile of scrap!" the 'con screeched.
Any witty comeback Sideswipe might have come up with was lost as his legs lost their purchase and were ripped out behind him. He dug his fingers in, felt the metal start to bend.
Slaggit, slaggit, slaggit!
The fin started to give. Any moment, it would rip free and he would go plummeting to the ground and the Seeker would finish his mission and Sideswipe could not let that happen.
The engine exhaust was an arm's reach to his right. So he brought out his pulse rifle and jammed it between the two flaps.
"Hey, bolt-face," he said. "Eat this!"
And Sideswipe started shooting.
The Seeker shrieked as something inside blew up. Sideswipe barely got his hand away from the port before a ball of flame burst out; he felt it singe the side of his face. Then the Seeker twisted violently to the side. Sideswipe felt his fingers slip off, felt the wind hit him and drag him back as the 'con spiraled off, leaking smoke and fire. He looked up and saw the ground rushing down at him.
Slag, he thought. Gonna need a better dismount.
Not technically dancing, but this is Sideswipe. Jet Judo counts. Thank you, my regular reviewers! You guys are what I look forward to when I'm stuck at work, so thanks for making my day!
Trapped in Reality: Glad you like it. Hope this wasn't disappointing.
blood shifter: Only those who need to do. And now it is Christmas, YAY!
cmdrtekk: Thank you!
Thing With No Talent: I typically do, too. They're such a great duo. But I, personally, haven't seen many stories where they're separated and I wanted to explore that. The majority of the upcoming chapters do have both of them in there, however.
Next chapter: Caring