1.0 - 'Ice To Meet You' - Open
May 19, 2014 22:52:43 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2014 22:52:43 GMT -5
Slopes of Cho Oyu, Nepal.
Well, it could’ve been worse.
For Moonshot the name ‘Earth’ conjured images of bare stone and primordial soup. Literature on the mudball planet was all but nonexistent, as befit a planet so recently-discovered Cybertronian cartographers hadn’t even assigned it an ident number. Everything she knew of the place came from scavenged transmissions and a single, months-old broadbeam transmission sent out by the Prime. It had warned of Decepticon activity, of native lifeforms on the cusp of spaceflight, of thick atmosphere and treacherous landscapes and a whole mess of other variables that spelled out ‘tread lightly’ in neon letters-
-but it had never mentioned glaciers, and that had spelled out Shot’s doom.
She had a transport, you see. A very old, very worn, very recalcitrant shuttle fondly named the Rustbucket. And old Rusty had about had it with her owner’s jaunts all over the known universe. She’d blown half her stabilizers in the frenzied flight from Eta-6, lost flight paneling skirting too close to a particularly unstable star, and had very nearly met an explosive end in the skies above an unnamed moon two sectors over. Every last tech had pronounced the thing unspaceworthy, a deathtrap on wings. Shot had quite merrily ignored them, confident in her ability to baby the thing all the way to Earth-
And then she’d had put the geriatric craft up against Earth’s atmosphere, fully expecting explosions to ensue.
By the grace of Primus and all other listening gods, they hadn’t, and that in and of itself was a minor miracle. It felt somehow ungrateful to whine about the circumstances of her survival. That being said, Shot had finally set down in the most remote, inhospitable location she could spot from orbit. Nepal was almost as beautiful as it was out-of-the-way, but it wasn’t the most Cybertronian-friendly chunk of dirt in the known universe. It was mountainous and pointy and full of glaciers- and no matter how much glaciers looked like landing pads from low orbit, they really weren’t. Five minutes perched atop the Ngozumpa glacier had left the still-steaming Rustbucket sunk in several feet of snowmelt. Slush reached halfway up her viewports, and external sensors gloomily reported the water-level was rising fast.
It still could’ve been worse.
Still shaky with raw, rippling relief, Shot wobbled her way over to the deathtrap’s communication’s array. With any luck the coordinates passed along with the Prime’s last message would still be good. Only one way to find out.
“Outpost Omega, this is Autobot Moonshot. I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you. Good news is, I’m safely down and I really doubt anything native is gonna find my transport. Bad news is I, uh. I seem to have landed on a glacier. And it’s melting. Like- a lot. Any chance I could get an assist out here?”
Preferably *before* I freeze to death?
Well, it could’ve been worse.
For Moonshot the name ‘Earth’ conjured images of bare stone and primordial soup. Literature on the mudball planet was all but nonexistent, as befit a planet so recently-discovered Cybertronian cartographers hadn’t even assigned it an ident number. Everything she knew of the place came from scavenged transmissions and a single, months-old broadbeam transmission sent out by the Prime. It had warned of Decepticon activity, of native lifeforms on the cusp of spaceflight, of thick atmosphere and treacherous landscapes and a whole mess of other variables that spelled out ‘tread lightly’ in neon letters-
-but it had never mentioned glaciers, and that had spelled out Shot’s doom.
She had a transport, you see. A very old, very worn, very recalcitrant shuttle fondly named the Rustbucket. And old Rusty had about had it with her owner’s jaunts all over the known universe. She’d blown half her stabilizers in the frenzied flight from Eta-6, lost flight paneling skirting too close to a particularly unstable star, and had very nearly met an explosive end in the skies above an unnamed moon two sectors over. Every last tech had pronounced the thing unspaceworthy, a deathtrap on wings. Shot had quite merrily ignored them, confident in her ability to baby the thing all the way to Earth-
And then she’d had put the geriatric craft up against Earth’s atmosphere, fully expecting explosions to ensue.
By the grace of Primus and all other listening gods, they hadn’t, and that in and of itself was a minor miracle. It felt somehow ungrateful to whine about the circumstances of her survival. That being said, Shot had finally set down in the most remote, inhospitable location she could spot from orbit. Nepal was almost as beautiful as it was out-of-the-way, but it wasn’t the most Cybertronian-friendly chunk of dirt in the known universe. It was mountainous and pointy and full of glaciers- and no matter how much glaciers looked like landing pads from low orbit, they really weren’t. Five minutes perched atop the Ngozumpa glacier had left the still-steaming Rustbucket sunk in several feet of snowmelt. Slush reached halfway up her viewports, and external sensors gloomily reported the water-level was rising fast.
It still could’ve been worse.
Still shaky with raw, rippling relief, Shot wobbled her way over to the deathtrap’s communication’s array. With any luck the coordinates passed along with the Prime’s last message would still be good. Only one way to find out.
“Outpost Omega, this is Autobot Moonshot. I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you. Good news is, I’m safely down and I really doubt anything native is gonna find my transport. Bad news is I, uh. I seem to have landed on a glacier. And it’s melting. Like- a lot. Any chance I could get an assist out here?”
Preferably *before* I freeze to death?