Ep0.5 - Texas/Chihuahuan Desert -'Scraps'- Closed

Cleaver gave the shoulder-mounted pest a dry, sidelong look. "My Cybertronian scanner is a Terran Television Trope. Funny back-up when it goes to slag, glitch. Fix the software whilst I see if any new Eradicons have bitten chips in the last cycle."

Watching the delicate frame scuttle obediently back down her arm, Cleaver dismissed the holo with a glyph and a grunt. Revealed again, the screen came online at her taps and filtered through the sensor data it had been collecting through sattelite relays. There was one new reading, significant enough to be looking into.

The medic adjusted her weight across her pedes, newly-transformed hands resting on her hips as she read over the data. She didn't look down to Reflector, no doubt buried in the array and, if his hyper self-preservation instincts were still online, getting rid of his joke program.

"Got a full mech in Nevada worth picking up. Energon's only got eleven breems electrical decay on it - what's left in his tank'll stiill be worth siphoning. Parts'll be better than what's on the drones as well... Oh frag it all - subterranean reading." A long suffering huff, and she momentarily felt her age. "I'll get the tow chains whilst you finish up."

Leaning away with squinting optics at Reflector's enthusiastically close lense, Cleaver attempted to flick his head away with one hand. "You're going down there first to hook up the tow lines, anyway - like slag am I digging a hole if I cna avoid it. Go on ahead if you want."

A crooked smile creased her face plates, and her tone gentled. "Actually, yes Reflector - I'll 'bridge you out first whilst I get ready, and you can scout ahead and see if whoever killed this non-drone is still there. If your head gets shot, then I'll know to wait a while before I collect the body." She arched an nonchalant optical ridge. "Unless you'd rather wait a klik whilst I get the gear and then go together? It's up to you"

A satisfied rumble and Cleaver ambled her body forward, electing to ignore her helm-mount. She had told herself, many times over, that the only reason she hadn't shored off the irritating little scraplet was that having Reflector around was nicer than being alone. Truthfully, she admired his gall, and found his behaviour refreashing as well as irritating.

Clambering back down the steps into the ship, Cleaver automatically ducked and weaved to avoid the hundreds of things hanging from the ceiling. Throughout most of the ship every wall, ceiling and surface was like this - cluttered with meticulously cleaned and labelled parts, tools and interesting nick-nacks.

The only places that weren't jammed to the support beams with salvaged and collected stuff were the cockpit (not that they were leaving any time soon, but it was prudent) and the medical bay. The diagnostic berth and equipment surrounding it were tended to as sacred, and Cleaver's control of the room was ruthless. Reflector knew far better than to put a bucket of oil over that door, or try any other prank.

Moving to the groundbridge controls, Cleaver unhooked two lengths of chain from the wall and plugged in the co-ordinates. "You going to bring your body along?" she asked, holding off on actually activating the portal until Reflector was back in one piece.

Flexing her neck to crack the tension out of stiff hydraulic lines, Cleaver activated the 'bridge and automated it to deactivate after their passing. Trudging through the swirling matrix of green and off-white light, they emerged on the other side into a desert quite different to the one they'd adopted as their back yard.

At the sight of so much mechanical influence on the landscape, she flashed a sensor sweep for organics before the portal had closed. Satisfied that they were alone, Cleaver began the slow walk down the abandoned mine's sloped paths with an Internet search on the co-ordinates running in the background.

"Place has been abandoned for years," she mused aloud to the tiny mech still perched on her head as they walked. "Deep as they've gone, doesn't look like the Terrans struck on any energon deposits. Ah, it's in this one."

Mindful of the body scurrying back down her arm, Cleaver unspooled one of the chains and threw a generous looped length in front of the mine entrance. The rocks blocking entry into the tunnel were scorched and still warm with residual energy - a quick and ugly burial. This late in the war, and on a backwater planet, it wasn't their place to question how supplies came about.

"Take the hook-line with you when you go down. Take a look, report back, secure it onto something that won't tear straight off, then come back up and I'll drag it out." She flexed her rotors, ready for the transformation into her alt mode that would provide the force and angle to drag the body straight up and out. "You alright to weave your way down there?"

Cleaver hooked the end of the line to a point on her chassis and waited for the tiny mech to reappear from the collapsed entrance. Once Reflector was clear, the medic transformed with a brief groan of protest from several transformation cogs and spun up her rotors. The tow-line fed straight into the Sea King undercarriage, and the massive helicopter lifted off at an angle that would allow her to pull the body up in a reasonably straight line.

It was noisy business, and she heard the distinctive sound of metal catching and tearing away as she ascended. Finally the mech spilled out onto the flat ground outside the entrance amidst a fresh cloud of dust and rocks. Landing before she transformed, Cleaver looped up the line as she approached, scanners automatically combing over the form for signs of life. Pointless, she knew, but default in her design. She could only see the mech's back and that looked slagged to the Pit and back.

She stopped mid-step and nearly stumbled when a pinprick of life flashed through her relays, and she jogged the rest of the way to turn the mech onto his back.

It was ugly to say the least, but her diagnostic systems catalogued the array of wounds without any of the emotional inflection that came with what was, quite clearly, horrific torture. Her knees hadn't struck the ground before she'd unspooled the umbilical line from her side.

...Both optics crushed inwards through blunt force; collar plates buckled and torn outwards...

The end of the thick cable snapped open into a complex array of neural, diagnostic and coolant lines around a thick energon hose.

...weapons mounts in both arms pulled out at the neural root; chassis armour destroyed and secondary layers split apart...

His fuel tank was one of the many things exposed to the air, and she welded in the connection inside of seconds, hands moving through the dust-clotted energon on his body to begin patching the biggest leaks.

... dabilitating stab wound wound through the upper region; barely fumes left in his lines; processor dark and on the verge of electrical decay....

Cleaver gritted her dentals as she tourniqueted off the lines going into his arms and legs. No point patching those, yet - just close up the primary systems.

...major articulation joints in the arms and legs dislocated and crushed; and spark casing...

"You shouldn't be alive. Someone wanted you dead and hurting more than that," she uttered softly, her chassis tight with some emotion that she didn't want to examine too deeply right now.

...spark casing forced with 100% entry; surrounding neuralcircuits heavily damaged and missing; signs of external contamination inside the casing suggestive of erotic contact...

Cleaver's optics flashed to her companion. "Reflector, he's... bad. Stay over there if you don't want to see it. Probably for the best if you don't."

An archaic, gutterally profane oath was in Cleaver's vocaliser but she curbed it with a rumble, focusing on the wounded mech until she was satisfied that it was safe to move him. Her energon ran through his lines in a tightly controlled circuit, and the makeshift patch-welds meant that the now-pressurised fluid seeped out anew. The medic gathered him to her chassis like a youngling, his tattered weight insubstantial.

She rose, and fixed cold, hard optics on Reflector. "I've never cared for the notion that any mecha deserves aid over another, deserves energon and life, and whatever he might have done to provoke this, he's suffered plenty for it." Her faceplates tightened with a flash of something dark and forbidding. "Provoked, not deserved. No one deserves to have their spark violated, torn up like this. So watch your glossa, scraplet, because I am not in the mood for you to act like I couldn't just step on you if I wanted."