Chapter 19

"Short-sighted"

The trials concerning local space-flight - which involved some late cases of micro-jumps and some interplanetary warps injected into the end of their first round of modules - had only just gone underway when news swept through the Institute, reaching both staff and students. Hawkmoon heard it first in the cafeteria, drinking energon with Cyberwarp, Nacelle, Northwind and Northwind's trine-mates: Quell and Skydive. Jetfire was there too; a friend of Skydive's who was a semester ahead of them, and was at the time "going out" with Starscream, Minerva's trine-mate.

Small world, Hawkmoon had mused. Small enough that all sorts of gossip ran rampant, even about the most meagre of things. She recalled how much of a reaction her leaning her helm against Cyberwarp's had garnered; smiles and muted cheers, and even a thumbs-up from quiet Quell. The newest tidbit of hearsay, though, elicited a reaction at the other end of the spectrum; disdain coupled with uncertainty.

"An official from Iacon is due to visit the Institution within the next few orns," Jetfire reported.

"What?" Northwind frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know. Don't think anyone does." Jetfire made a face of distaste. "Probably to hurry things up."

Hawkmoon grimaced. No one liked talking about Iacon, she'd found. It was a sore spot for Vos, for no other reason than because the other city-state was politically stronger than their own. It was easy to think yourself the king or queen of the world when you could rise up and view the entirety of said world from atop a throne of stars. The new order of things especially, of Iacon pretty much demanding Vos's services, hadn't endeared many Seekers to the capital.

The rest of Cybertron wasn't taking well to the newest crisis either; there were riots in Tarn and Tyger Pax, uproar from Kaon's slave-sector, talks in Simfur about cutting themselves off from Iacon's influence and the High Council's jurisdiction, and the Prime himself - some cross between a high priest and knightly king, said by some to have been chosen by Primus himself - was taking an dangerous level of interest in the planet-wide upheaval. Hawkmoon didn't like him. Zeta Prime, Sentinel of Iacon. She hadn't seen or heard all that much, just that he wasn't popular in Vos and... well... Some of those responsible for the bombing had been identified and seized in the orns after the attack. Zeta Prime had ordered them publicly executed on the grounds of treason. No one had spoken out. Hawkmoon had, like most mecha she knew, skipped the broadcast, but it still left a bitter taste in her mouth.

You didn't kill people live on television. You didn't. No matter how horrific a crime they committed, even plunging an entire planet into a veritable food crisis, you just... didn't.

"We're headed into off-world training soon enough," Northwind noted. "We won't be around here often enough to notice."

"Here's hoping," Nacelle groaned. "Last thing I need is some grounder leering at me during my trials."

"Cheers to that," Hawkmoon said, raising her cube.

"Cheers," most everyone echoed, clinking the edges of energon containers together.

"You there!"

Hawkmoon offlined her optics and quietly groaned. She turned from the door, faked a smile and said, "Hi, Starscream."

Starscream, a mech in red and white with some blue accents, stopped and looked her over. As if just noticing her for the first time. As if they hadn't actually met thrice before. "You've got connections with Contrail, yes?"

"Conne... ections..." Hawkmoon tapped a digit against her chin, feigning consideration. "Hmmm... I'm not sure. Could you clarify, please?"

His optics, both a cold red, narrowed. "You're making fun of me," he snarled.

"What's my designation?"

"What?"

"What's my designation?" Hawkmoon asked again.

Starscream blinked. "What're you-"

"You want something, right? Friends help each other. Friends know each other's names. What's my designation?"

"You can't-"

"What's-"

"Cloudstrike!" Starscream shrieked.

Hawkmoon nodded. "There we go."

"Wait, it is?"

"No. Not even close. We mustn't be very good friends then, right?" She opened the door and stepped right in. "Buh-bye." The dorm's bulkhead slid closed.

Cyberwarp glanced over from the couch. "Everything alright?"

"Perfectly fine," Hawkmoon replied, strolling over and stretching her wings. The day's many flight-runs had put a crick in one of them, which she was eager to get rid of. She sent a message Minerva's way, ::Starscream's bothering me.::

::What's he doing?:: Minerva replied after a moment's pause.

::Trying to get in contact with Contrail.::

::Ignore him.::

::Already on it.:: Hawkmoon fell back onto the couch, sprawled herself over Cyberwarp's lap and vented a sigh.

"Long day?" Cyberwarp inquired with a grin.

"Meh," Hawkmoon replied.

"Now that's a cry for help if I've ever heard one."

"You the best."

"Oh, I know." Cyberwarp's servos roved over Hawkmoon's wings. "So... the Iaconian arrived today."

Hawkmoon, her optics offline, hummed. "Did they?"

"Caught a glimpse of him."

"Oh? What's he like?"

"Well, he's got a chin."

"Mmmm, yes, chins." Hawkmoon nodded. "It's always encouraging to see mecha with chins in this day and age"

"You aft!" Cyberwarp laughed. "No, he's got a chin. Trust me; you'll understand when you see him."

"What's to say I'll even get the chance?"

"Hawkmoon," Contrail said, nodding to her. "This is Sigil, representative of the High Council of Iacon and ambassador of the North-Hemisphere Merchant's Guild."

Sweet Traveler above, Cyberwarp was right. The mech had a chin and a half - a pointy purple-crested thing that stuck out two digit-lengths long. His audials were pointy and arranged horizontally in an admittedly ridiculous way, and his optics were huge, but nothing could beat that chin. She was impressed. Intimidated, even. There was enough chin to stab someone with. Hell, she could've made a knife out of it and had some scrap left over.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Hawkmoon."

Sigil gave her a lingering look, one that was hard to read with those silly, massive searchlights-for-optics of his, and then faced Contrail again. "Charmed."

"You requested to see the top of my class. Here she is."

"This one?"

"Yes," Contrail said, an edge in his voice. "This one."

Hawkmoon struggled to keep the snark bottled down and distaste from showing. She already didn't like the new mech. Well, maybe aside from his chin; that thing was plain legendary. "Contrail's just overstating, I'm not-"

"I don't overstate things," Contrail interrupted, shooting her a look that said stay quiet, don't talk out of turn, this could get dangerous. "Hitting records in flight-tests and combat-drills. We're about to put her through a live-fire sim run. Care to watch?"

Sigil looked at her again, a glance that told her exactly how little he thought of her, of both the Seekers present, of everything about the historic and prestiged building they were standing in. Hawkmoon wasn't usually one to identify with factions or establishments, being a roamer at heart, but the Institute... it had a place in her spark already. "Perhaps I will."

Contrail dipped his head. "The sims will commence on the 'morrow. Hawkmoon - dismissed."

Hawkmoon dipped her helm and left the office, only then allowing her talons to curl in her palm and march back to her dorm at merciless pace.

Yeah, the Iaconian was an asshole - just like they'd all thought he'd be. But then, what else should they have expected? Traveler-forsaken politicians and all their greedy ways; it had been almost the same at home. Well, home had the Vanguard, and even... yes, even without Cayde, it was still family. It was still what made the City home.

She missed it, Hawkmoon thought. She missed it so, so much.

War was also home. Strange to think it, but it was. Like riding a bike, really; once a soldier, always a soldier.

Hawkmoon fell into the make-believe of the hollow, empty simulation with a familiar ease; she shouldered the Ion-Line rifle in her hands like she would any linear fusion rifle worth its salt, ducked into cover behind a sparse collection of alien vegetation and rocky outcroppings and checked her immediate surroundings for flanking assailants. Projectile rounds peppered her location, inaccurate and lost to organic error, and the moment her internal radar and thermal detectors gave her a go-ahead, she was out and firing with pinpoint precision. Two creatures half her size - furred and vaguely humanoid, wearing bandoliers laden down with power cells, bullet clips and fragmentation explosives - opened fire on her, but their rounds harmlessly bounced off her armour. She didn't need to worry about that. Hawkmoon kept moving, putting both gunners down, and shot forward with a burst of her thrusters.

Not a moment later, a high-density energy round lanced through where she'd just been standing. Her optics picked out where the shot had come from, her combat datalogue identified the calibre of laser cannon responsible, and her processor - already attuned to the cold calculus of battle - quickly rattled through all the best ways to dismantle it. Hawkmoon twisted, spreading her wings and briefly taking to the air, and dragged her rifle around to shoot off a single dart of searing energy. The cannon's fuel cells caught alight and blew apart, taking out the artillery piece and its crew with it in a single belching burst of flame.

Her optics narrowed; it had been orns since she'd last seen something so bright. The very world she stood on was in a dark spot regarding its weak star, almost perpetually covered over with a thick poisonous smog and orbited by a couple rings of dusty, rocks and ice, not to mention its three sizable moons. The sun rarely ever pierced the heavens, but she made due. Cybertronian visual-sensors were, perhaps, the best in the business - adaptable beyond belief and a whole lot less fragile than the jellied kind of organics. Not sturdy enough to take an armour-piercing round, no, or even a stray punch from anything her own size, but still better in a pinch.

::This is Hawkmoon. I'm clear now, but not for long; pirates are converging on my position. Any update?::

::Frigates are dancing circles up here,:: Northwind replied. ::Got them handled, but they're spewing snub-craft. We've shot down most of them, but a few got away - headed to the energon miner now. Southwesterly heading from the equator, descending rapidly, fifty kliks from your position.::

::Understood, will run to intercept. Hawkmoon over and out.:: She tossed her rifle back, reabsorbing it into her frame with a clanking partial transformation sequence, and leapt into the air. Her thrusters tossed her some distance above the ground before she shifted into her alt-mode and shot away. Northwind sent her a ping of her target's locations; she cut a swathe through the sky towards them.

The vessels were small and ramshackle, built from secondhand scrap and lacking all the finesse of Eliksni scavengers metalworking skills that she would normally have expected. Whatever these creatures were, they weren't the same kind of pirates as those she was used to. All the easier to mop up, really.

Her first strafing burst of plasma-fire took out the two javelin-shaped spacecraft at the rear and dropped them to the planet below as flaming carcasses. The remaining three scattered - perhaps in hopes of confusing and losing her, but a quick accompanying blast took out a third. The last pair diverged, headed in opposite directions, and started to turn to face her. Hawkmoon chose at random, ran down the closest vessel and gutted it with a single lance of ionized energy. The last sped up, seeing her back, and opened fire - but Hawkmoon turned up, at a dangerous angle no organic pilot could ever survive, and transformed just as she went over the alien craft. She raked one clawed servo down the top of its hull, jammed her pedes into its flimsy armour and transformed her free servo into a blade riddled with superheated nanotubes - which she then used to slice right through. It fell away in two smoking chunks down to the eerily silent forests below.

Hawkmoon shot away from the scene, carving a route directly back to the miner and took to circling around the rumbling construct, her radar blinking empty. ::This is Hawkmoon, snub-craft are dealt with. What's the situation?::

::Frigates are burning,:: Northwind cheerily informed her. ::We're in the clear from here.::

::Stay alert,:: Hawkmoon ordered. ::Instructors could be waiting to throw a wrench into the works.::

::I love your metaphors. I'm going to steal that one.::

::Focus, 'Wind!::

::Got it, got it. Optics are open; sensors are online. We've got nothing incoming so far.::

- End of Simulation -

Hawkmoon sighed. ::Guess we ARE clear, then.::

::What did I tell you?::

::'Wind, you know it's not like that in real life.::

::Righto ma'am.::

::And don't you forget it,:: she groaned with semi-real exasperation.

Hawkmoon sat up when the link-cables were disconnected, digital feed fading from her optics, processor reconnecting with the rest of her body's myriad sensors. She thanked the technician responsible for running the programme, stood up and clasped Northwind's servo the moment he was up too.

"Think we did good?" he asked, grinning.

Hawkmoon smirked. "Do I think? Mech, I know."

Northwind's smile fell. He nodded past her. "But do they?"

Hawkmoon turned around. Up above, in the glass-framed instructor's observatory for the sim-deck, Contrail was visibly arguing with Sigil - moving his hands aggressively, making fists, pointing fingers, shouting. Hawkmoon couldn't hear anything, the observatory was soundproofed, but still...

"We're are done here, right?" Northwind quietly asked.

Hawkmoon hesitated. "I don't..."

"Our trines-"

"I don't think the Iaconian cares."

Northwind grunted. "Fragging grounders."

For once, Hawkmoon was of mind to agree.

Sigil disappeared - probably to pester someone else - and Contrail returned to them alone. He did not look happy. "Well done," he said stiffly. "Exemplary work, both of you."

Hawkmoon shared a troubled look with Northwind. "Thank... you..."

"Call your trines."

"Sir?"

Contrail vented heavily. "It's their turn-"

"But their sim-slots aren't for five more orns," Northwind exclaimed. "They haven't prepared!"

"We don't have a choice," Contrail retorted. His tone softened. "Our schedule has moved ahead."

They shared another concerned look. Hawkmoon cleared her vents. "How long do we have left?" she inquired.

"Half a quartex."

Northwind exploded - with panic more than anything else. "But sir-! That's not enough time! We can't-"

"We have no choice!" Contrail savagely snapped. Northwind went quiet and stock still. "Half a quartex was all I could get you. Sigil wanted you out there now. They have no idea..." His vents drew in air to cool off his raging engines. "Call your trines, now. We don't have a choice.

Northwind straightened. "Sir, I can't just... I don't know if I can go along with this."

"That's not your decision to make."

"It is if I choose not to be a part of-"

"No, you don't have a choice anymore," Contrail told him. "You're in the Institute now. Training is compulsory - according to the new Iaconian regime." He looked down, snorting to himself. "Used to be we were trying to weed out the weak, and now..."

"I can't leave?" Northwind asked, aghast.

"No."

"But-"

"Our servos are tied, Northwind. The Conclave, the Prince, us - we don't have a choice." Contrail grimaced, expression becoming foul. "We all have to fly now," he scowled. "For Cybertron."

It wasn't until late into the orn that Cyberwarp and Nacelle returned to the dorm. The mech saw her, nodded his greetings, grabbed a spare cube and walked right into his room - gone. No more Nacelle. Not until the next day. Cyberwarp, instead, pretty much collapsed into Hawkmoon's arms and said, "I hated it. We weren't-"

"Ready, I know." Hawkmoon held her up. She sighed. "I don't like this any more than you do."

"We aren't ready," Cyberwarp tiredly exclaimed. "Not even for a full Quartex. There's so much... we won't cover everything at this rate."

"I know."

"'Moon, we can't do this."

"They won't let us go," Hawkmoon told her. "The Institute can't. It's military now, and conscription's in effect."

"I hate this."

"Me too." Hawkmoon winced. "This wasn't what I signed up for."

"... What did you sign up for?" Cyberwarp suddenly asked.

Hawkmoon went rigid. "I..."

"Is this..." Cyberwarp's optics brightened. "This is part of-"

"Training," Hawkmoon interjected. "I came here for training."

"To fly."

"To get away."

Cyberwarp flinched. "Away?" she echoed.

Hawkmoon grimaced; it was out of the bag now. Some of it, anyways. She needed to moderate... "From Cybertron. I just... can't be here anymore."

"Are you running for something?"

She snorted. Maybe she was, but more accurately: "I'm running towards something."

"What?"

"I can't... 'Warp, you know I'm not going to spill."

Cyberwarp leaned her helm against Hawkmoon's front. "I wish you would." She paused. "This must suit you, then. To get away so much faster."

"No!" Hawkmoon lifted Cyberwarp's helm up to face her. "I didn't want this - for me, you, anyone. This is insane. I'm not even ready for it!"

"None of us are," Cyberwarp miserably sighed. "We're not going to-"

"I'll talk to Contrail. See if he can allocate more modules our way. Squeeze in as much as we can."

Cyberwarp groaned. "We're going to be exhausted."

"Run ragged," Hawkmoon agreed. "But we need it. We won't last without. I'm not heading out unprepared. Neither are you."

Cyberwarp looked at her - actually looked at her, in a way she hadn't before. "I want..." she started to say, then trailed off. "Look, I'm-"

Hawkmoon kissed her - first gently, almost chastely, and then more fiercely when Cyberwarp joined in. The door to her room slid open, Rook was kicked out, and it shut with bang. Hawkmoon didn't care. Saw only the femme in front of her. Asked, "How'd you do?", got a kiss in response, took it as a hint to shut the hell up and get on with things.

Not that she knew what things actually involved, and Cyberwarp noticed, but the confusion didn't last for long. For once she wasn't the one in the lead, the one to teach and mentor her team to drag them up through every lesson past acceptable all the way to exemplary.

It was nice.

When their spark-chambers were exposed, when Cyberwarp's digits ran over the sensitive casing, Hawkmoon initially feared she'd only see Nokris's claws, that she'd frighten and flee - but she only saw 'Warp.

And that was enough.

Editor's Note: It feels like every day I wake up to find this man has planted another draft in my inbox. What I would give for his motivation and energy. -Nomad

AN: And that's the second chapter. Now's is essay time. Send help.