[ti]Ep 1.5[/ti]Shake off the rust...
Aug 7, 2016 17:23:05 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2016 17:23:05 GMT -5
::Episode 1.5, Week 2, Day 5::
Cold… it was always cold on Cybertron now a cycle. Most planets were warmed not just externally by the sun they orbited, but also internally by their molten cores. The metal planet was no different for a time since its core also internally heated the planet, sending it’s ‘hot of the plate’ Energon coursing through the planet for the population to consume. However Cybertron’s core was no longer functioning, thus it was no longer internally warming the planet. As a result the metal planet was colder now, but as one of the last Cybertronians on the planet looked up at the star filled sky and let out a sorrowful sigh. At that moment he would’ve preferred the sun going dark instead because the Energon that came from Cybertron’s core was also the only fuel that Cybertronians could consume.
And within 10 square clicks there wasn’t a drop of Energon anywhere. The only living Cybertronian within that large area had picked it clean.
Hazmat shook his helm as he rolled his right shoulder as he gazed up at the star filled sky. If he focused he could pretend that he could make out what was left of the exhaust that the Ark had left behind as it had taken off… without him. A low angry growl escaped his voice box as his right servo tightened into a fist. A long duel with a skilled Decepticon that had slaughtered his entire squad was responsible for that… not exactly the ‘Con but rather the duel itself… and Smokestack’s anger about losing the convoy that the squad had been guarding. The old Autobot could’ve retreated from the battle if he had moved fast enough, and then he might have made it to the Ark before liftoff. But no, he had to avenge his fallen comrades even though their last words were for him to run, and that led to one of the longest one-on-one duels in his long life against a much younger ‘Con that was clearly skilled. The duel ended when the sound of the Ark’s first stage thrusters coming online and lifting the last hope of all Autobots into space... leaving the old mech behind on a Primus forsaken wasteland. He fought alongside the other Autobots that got left behind but in the end Hazmat was the only mech left standing in the Deacon’s underground.
Hazmat wasn’t sure what became of the Decepticon that had caused him to miss his only way off of Cybertron, but at the moment it didn’t really matter. So he relaxed and let tightened digits of his servo go slack. He was here, and he’d have to deal with it. With that Hazmat returned to the task at hand; attempt to figure out how to climb down the collapsed tower he had climbed a few hours ago. He squatted down, the hydraulics and joints making up his legs groaning slightly under his weight, to get a closer inspection of the remains of the elevator shaft that he had climbed up to get up the tower in hopes of finding any Energon up there. He had gotten lucky and scrounged enough to fill two cubes… but while he had been scraping the last few drops of Energon into the second cube his audio pickups heard the sound of a crash, and when he got back to the elevator shaft he found that there wasn’t any shaft left.
Which left him a bit of a problem; the only way down was to either take a flying leap and hope he’d handle the long drop, or try to climb down the rusty support beams and hope they could handle his weight along with the weight of the building they were still holding up. Of course Hazmat went with the latter since it was a really long fall, and carefully swung his heavy chassis over the edge and planted his pedes on the first support. It held, much to the old Cybertronian’s relief. He then slowly removed one pede from the support and bent the leg that was now holding all of his weight, lowering himself towards the next horizontal support while his servos loosely held onto the vertical support on his right in case he needed to suddenly grab onto it. The pistons in his bending leg groaned and blew out steam but held as his free hanging pede found firm footing on the lower support. This time shifting his weight to the leg that was now on the lower support, Hazmat pulled his weight off of the bent leg and let it slowly extend to place it on the lower support and firmly planted that pede onto the support. This pattern continued as Smokestack slowly lowered himself from one support to the next, making his way downwards to safety.
It was working until he was two thirds of the way down when he heard a SNAP! One of the bolts of the support he was standing off had sheared the moment his full weight was on it! Hazmat tried to shift his weight to the next support beam, but there wasn’t enough time to… only for his green eyes to widen in fear.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
”SCRAP!”
Down he went, falling like a sack of spare parts, the old Cybertronian fell the rest of the length of the tower and landed on his pedes with a thunderous thump! that echoed for almost a mile. The instant he hit the ground a stream of error message scrolled across the Autobot’s field of vision as Hazmat’s right leg started to burn with pain and couldn’t support his weight anymore, and he tipped forwards to end up on his servos and knees. ”Great. Just great.” Hazmat grimaced as he rolled onto his left side and then onto his aft and quickly sat up to look at the damage done to his leg. There was a crack in his Hazmat Armor’s outer shell running along the front of his right leg, just below the knee. Tiny bits of gold coloring could be seen in the crack, revealing the underlying insulation of the Hazmat Armor, along with a few drops of Energon leaking out of the crack.
Acting quickly Hazmat aimed his left forearm at his leg as the medical scanner extended from his forearm and started to scan his damaged limb. The beam was blue as it passed over his upper leg, but the moment the beam crossed the crack it turned red. All the while he was keeping a close eye on the scan readouts that were starting to scroll across his HUD on the left side. The results made him frown even more; the crack in his armor was caused by him hitting something on his landing that was hard enough to not only break his armor but to pinch one of his primary hydraulic lines. No hydraulic fluid was going down to his pede.
It would be an easy fix since all he needed to do was open up the armor an free up the line… but was one thought currently scrolling through Hazmat’s processor on repeat: Frag…
He was about to pull his leg closer to start working on it when the sound of a crunch drew his optics off to the right as his left servo quickly reached down to his left hip and curled around the grip of his Shot Cannon if he needed to draw it. He didn’t need to pull the grip back to load an Energon shell… it already had one loaded. Hazmat kept it loaded in case something came out of the darkness to attack him. One good close range shot normally did the trick, and if not it would stun any single target enough for him to either load another shell or grab his steam hammer. However now would be the worst time for something to try to attack him since he was currently disabled and unable to move. His head on a swivel, Hazmat surveyed his surroundings and found the source of the sound; a hunk of the broken elevator shaft had been crushed by a falling piece of debris. There was rust floating in the air so it was easy to tell. Hazmat would’ve relaxed slightly knowing that there wasn’t any danger but his leg was still broken so he wasn’t out of the pit yet.
Looking back down at his wound, Hazmat reached into his subspace and pulled out what looked like some type of stun gun. It was a medical device used to make the pain receptors in his leg go numb so he could repair his leg without screaming his voice box out, but still this self-surgery wasn’t going to be pleasant. However there was a downside: his Hazmat Armor made him resistant to it so the pain killer wouldn’t last long. After using the tool on his leg a few times, each time resulting in a small electrical discharge that made Hazmat flinch, he carefully opened up the damaged armor plating with his fingers to see the pinched hose, stuck between his armor and frame. The pooled up Energon in the wounded area quickly leaked out. There was no way he could to a proper repair, he just didn’t have the tools to do so… but he could patch it enough to get to safety. Gritting his teeth, Hazmat carefully used his servo tips to grab the hydraulic line and carefully pull it open at the pinched area to allow hydraulic fluid to flow through it again… but not much. This was followed by reconnecting the leaking Energon lines. Finally Hazmat closed up his Hazmat Armor, one layer of insulation at a time. His right servo retracted into his hands and a welder extended out in its place and he began to weld his armor shut. By the time he was finished with the last weld Hazmat was gritting his teeth in pain since the pain killer had worn off. If only he could tell his armor to turn off occationally!
But the repairs were done and it was now up to his auto-repair systems to fix the rest of the damage. It could do it but it would take time. Retracting his welder so he could use his servo again, Hazmat slowly rose by placing his weight on his left leg, than slowly applied weight to his right leg. It held. He tried to take a hesitant step, only to find his right ankle joint was weak due to lack of hydraulic fluids reaching the pede. It was going to be a long limp back to his shelter, and since he had to climb over some debris transforming into his alternate to get there wasn’t going to be an option. Seeing no other option, Hazmat right servo reached down to his right pede and grabbed a piece of metal to use it as a crutch. It held his weight, but barely.
It was a long and hard journey but Hazmat finally managed to get back to his shelter. It wasn’t much, or at least it wasn’t much now. Before it had been one of the many reclamation centers that dotted Cybertron’s underground. Now it was just another destroyed structure. Well, okay not entirely destroyed since it’s lower levels were still fairly intact, thanks to the fact that this reclamation center also served as a hub for custodial mechs to dump their detoxified cargo, get backup for a rather large cleanup job… or get repairs after running into something or someone rather bad in Cybertron’s underground. As a matter of fact this particular reclamation center was the closest one to the Decagon, though Hazmat had only been here once which was to refuel while on his way to Kaon with a shipment of hazmat cars. It wasn’t long afterwards that the Great War had begun and Hazmat temporarily joined the Decepticons before coming to his senses and switching to the Autobots.
Hazmat winced as he stepped down on his patched up leg once again, and looked up at the large contraption that he had set by the only entrance into his shelter; one of the last remaining remnants of his military carrier during the great war, a turret car which Hazmat had pulled himself during the great war. It was the only part of his convoy that had survived during the battle that ended with Smokestack missing the Exodus and all of his troops dying. Not knowing what he would be up against on this dead world, Hazmat had kept these turret cars with him during his travels throughout the dead planet’s destroyed surface and underground… only to run into only corpses that were already gun-metal gray or others that were so much worse off than him that killing them was more like putting them out of their misery then an actually battle. Eventually when Hazmat found this reclamation center and made it his shelter, he simply parked the turret car by the entrance into the shelter to act as means of self-defense if someone tried to attack his shelter. However after so many vorns went by without anyone showing up, Hazmat drained them of their Energon for his consumption. Now it was just an ornament that was rusting and gathering dust. The old Autobot limbed up to the mobile artillery and placed his left servo on it for support while he continued to limp into his shelter. So much time has passed, and I’m still relying on my allies for support… he thought as he carefully let go of the car and then placed a servo on the wall of the rectangular corridor that lead into his shelter. As he did so the only thing he could hear was the clunk clunk clunk of his large feet, along with the occational clang of his make-shift crutch.
At the end of the corridor was Hazmat’s shelter. As he limbed his way into the shelter he eyed everything carefully to make sure it was all still in place and functional, even with a big gun sitting on his front door that didn’t mean it would deter everyone that was desperate. The shelter was fairly drab but it was clean and livable… it was the home of a custodian after all. The room had been fashioned with a Cybertronian-sized couch and a few tables, a pair of Energon processors, couple of other medical tools, and some other repair tools… all of which Hazmat made use of. The couch was where he’d lie down to recharge… if he could get himself to recharge that is since he had some much trouble doing so since he always had recharge-mares. The tables acted as work benches since sometimes the custodian mech needed to make repairs to parts of his shelter… it was partly blasted apart. He had also made some modifications to one of the Energon processors using an emitter and several filters he had salvaged from a dead custodian bot he had found at one point, converting it into an Energon filtration machine. Hazmat carefully walked over to the filtration machine and leaned his waist against the table so he could use both servos instead only using one servo and having the other one occupied with holding himself up with his crutch. Reaching into his side mounted compartments with both arms, Hazmat lifted out the two cubes of Energon he had managed to salvage from the tower he had climbed. He placed them both down on the table and carefully removed their lids to reveal the Energon he had found earlier and frowned as a stream of golden light was emitted from his eyes and scanned the Energon for any contaminants… and found plenty of rust flakes. If he drank it like this his body would reject it… followed by him ‘ejecting’ it through regurgitation. He never experienced it and he had no plans too. So instead he simply picked up both cubes of Energon and slowly poured them into the Energon filter, closed the lid, and turned the device on. The filtration process would remove any contaminates from the Energon making it completely drinkable… though it would take quite a while.
With nothing to do but wait, Hazmat started to turn around and limp over to the couch but stopped half way over to glance at what was sitting in the back of the shelter, and the reason why he picked this as his shelter instead of somewhere else; the long range ground bridge that was still functional. When he first found it Hazmat had drained it of nearly all its Energon to stay alive, but when he realized that he just might have to make a run for it through through the bridge he left just enough energy in it for him to make a getaway. He wasn’t an expert on using ground bridges, but he had an idea he left enough Energon since the machine had a gauge. While it didn’t do much else to help Hazmat stay alive, he did occasionally glance at it to see if it’s radar was detecting anything he should be concerned about.
Which was why when he glanced over at the ground bridge while walking towards the couch he stopped. Every single time he had looked over at the ground bridge the displays had looked the same every time… though this time there was a new red light, and it wasn’t coming from the radar. Puzzled, Hazmat started to limp over to the ground bridge, his patched leg letting out a groaning sound each time he took a step. He was figuring the system was having an error and it needed to be repaired. Why not? It had gone without repairs for ages and that was before he found it… and without having anyway to fix it he just kinda left it. He was still surprised it was functional at all, let alone at a good efficacy. However when Hazmat had gotten over to the ground bridge control panel, his jaw nearly fell off of his helm; it was the ground bridge’s comm relay that was blinking! ”That can’t be right…” Hazmat said, thinking out loud, as he activated the diagnostic cycle for the ground bridge. After a moment the readout of the diagnostic’s results were deplayed, and Hazmat’s optics widened… and widened… and widened till they were about to pop out of his helm.
The ground bridge was receiving an incoming message from orbit! The ground bridge terminal had been broadcasting a signal this whole time and Hazmat didn’t even know it… and it was receiving a return signal on that broadcast! Hazmat wasn’t sure what to do! For all he knew this could’ve been a Decepticon contacting the ground bridge… or maybe it could’ve been an Autobot… or maybe a living Priest of Primius visiting Cybertron to see how the dead planet was doing and just happened to detect the ground bridge signal. Or maybe it was some passing none Cybertronian ship. Whichever it was, Hazmat wasn’t going to let an opportunity to leave Cybertron to pass up and he pressed the transparent blue button on the display to activate his end of the comm.
”This is Hazmat, commanding officer of Autobot mobile artillery unit 5567-Zeta, and the Zeta Company. To whom am I speaking with?” was what came out of his vocalizer. Now… to wait for a reply from whomever was on the other end of the line.
Cold… it was always cold on Cybertron now a cycle. Most planets were warmed not just externally by the sun they orbited, but also internally by their molten cores. The metal planet was no different for a time since its core also internally heated the planet, sending it’s ‘hot of the plate’ Energon coursing through the planet for the population to consume. However Cybertron’s core was no longer functioning, thus it was no longer internally warming the planet. As a result the metal planet was colder now, but as one of the last Cybertronians on the planet looked up at the star filled sky and let out a sorrowful sigh. At that moment he would’ve preferred the sun going dark instead because the Energon that came from Cybertron’s core was also the only fuel that Cybertronians could consume.
And within 10 square clicks there wasn’t a drop of Energon anywhere. The only living Cybertronian within that large area had picked it clean.
Hazmat shook his helm as he rolled his right shoulder as he gazed up at the star filled sky. If he focused he could pretend that he could make out what was left of the exhaust that the Ark had left behind as it had taken off… without him. A low angry growl escaped his voice box as his right servo tightened into a fist. A long duel with a skilled Decepticon that had slaughtered his entire squad was responsible for that… not exactly the ‘Con but rather the duel itself… and Smokestack’s anger about losing the convoy that the squad had been guarding. The old Autobot could’ve retreated from the battle if he had moved fast enough, and then he might have made it to the Ark before liftoff. But no, he had to avenge his fallen comrades even though their last words were for him to run, and that led to one of the longest one-on-one duels in his long life against a much younger ‘Con that was clearly skilled. The duel ended when the sound of the Ark’s first stage thrusters coming online and lifting the last hope of all Autobots into space... leaving the old mech behind on a Primus forsaken wasteland. He fought alongside the other Autobots that got left behind but in the end Hazmat was the only mech left standing in the Deacon’s underground.
Hazmat wasn’t sure what became of the Decepticon that had caused him to miss his only way off of Cybertron, but at the moment it didn’t really matter. So he relaxed and let tightened digits of his servo go slack. He was here, and he’d have to deal with it. With that Hazmat returned to the task at hand; attempt to figure out how to climb down the collapsed tower he had climbed a few hours ago. He squatted down, the hydraulics and joints making up his legs groaning slightly under his weight, to get a closer inspection of the remains of the elevator shaft that he had climbed up to get up the tower in hopes of finding any Energon up there. He had gotten lucky and scrounged enough to fill two cubes… but while he had been scraping the last few drops of Energon into the second cube his audio pickups heard the sound of a crash, and when he got back to the elevator shaft he found that there wasn’t any shaft left.
Which left him a bit of a problem; the only way down was to either take a flying leap and hope he’d handle the long drop, or try to climb down the rusty support beams and hope they could handle his weight along with the weight of the building they were still holding up. Of course Hazmat went with the latter since it was a really long fall, and carefully swung his heavy chassis over the edge and planted his pedes on the first support. It held, much to the old Cybertronian’s relief. He then slowly removed one pede from the support and bent the leg that was now holding all of his weight, lowering himself towards the next horizontal support while his servos loosely held onto the vertical support on his right in case he needed to suddenly grab onto it. The pistons in his bending leg groaned and blew out steam but held as his free hanging pede found firm footing on the lower support. This time shifting his weight to the leg that was now on the lower support, Hazmat pulled his weight off of the bent leg and let it slowly extend to place it on the lower support and firmly planted that pede onto the support. This pattern continued as Smokestack slowly lowered himself from one support to the next, making his way downwards to safety.
It was working until he was two thirds of the way down when he heard a SNAP! One of the bolts of the support he was standing off had sheared the moment his full weight was on it! Hazmat tried to shift his weight to the next support beam, but there wasn’t enough time to… only for his green eyes to widen in fear.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
”SCRAP!”
Down he went, falling like a sack of spare parts, the old Cybertronian fell the rest of the length of the tower and landed on his pedes with a thunderous thump! that echoed for almost a mile. The instant he hit the ground a stream of error message scrolled across the Autobot’s field of vision as Hazmat’s right leg started to burn with pain and couldn’t support his weight anymore, and he tipped forwards to end up on his servos and knees. ”Great. Just great.” Hazmat grimaced as he rolled onto his left side and then onto his aft and quickly sat up to look at the damage done to his leg. There was a crack in his Hazmat Armor’s outer shell running along the front of his right leg, just below the knee. Tiny bits of gold coloring could be seen in the crack, revealing the underlying insulation of the Hazmat Armor, along with a few drops of Energon leaking out of the crack.
Acting quickly Hazmat aimed his left forearm at his leg as the medical scanner extended from his forearm and started to scan his damaged limb. The beam was blue as it passed over his upper leg, but the moment the beam crossed the crack it turned red. All the while he was keeping a close eye on the scan readouts that were starting to scroll across his HUD on the left side. The results made him frown even more; the crack in his armor was caused by him hitting something on his landing that was hard enough to not only break his armor but to pinch one of his primary hydraulic lines. No hydraulic fluid was going down to his pede.
It would be an easy fix since all he needed to do was open up the armor an free up the line… but was one thought currently scrolling through Hazmat’s processor on repeat: Frag…
He was about to pull his leg closer to start working on it when the sound of a crunch drew his optics off to the right as his left servo quickly reached down to his left hip and curled around the grip of his Shot Cannon if he needed to draw it. He didn’t need to pull the grip back to load an Energon shell… it already had one loaded. Hazmat kept it loaded in case something came out of the darkness to attack him. One good close range shot normally did the trick, and if not it would stun any single target enough for him to either load another shell or grab his steam hammer. However now would be the worst time for something to try to attack him since he was currently disabled and unable to move. His head on a swivel, Hazmat surveyed his surroundings and found the source of the sound; a hunk of the broken elevator shaft had been crushed by a falling piece of debris. There was rust floating in the air so it was easy to tell. Hazmat would’ve relaxed slightly knowing that there wasn’t any danger but his leg was still broken so he wasn’t out of the pit yet.
Looking back down at his wound, Hazmat reached into his subspace and pulled out what looked like some type of stun gun. It was a medical device used to make the pain receptors in his leg go numb so he could repair his leg without screaming his voice box out, but still this self-surgery wasn’t going to be pleasant. However there was a downside: his Hazmat Armor made him resistant to it so the pain killer wouldn’t last long. After using the tool on his leg a few times, each time resulting in a small electrical discharge that made Hazmat flinch, he carefully opened up the damaged armor plating with his fingers to see the pinched hose, stuck between his armor and frame. The pooled up Energon in the wounded area quickly leaked out. There was no way he could to a proper repair, he just didn’t have the tools to do so… but he could patch it enough to get to safety. Gritting his teeth, Hazmat carefully used his servo tips to grab the hydraulic line and carefully pull it open at the pinched area to allow hydraulic fluid to flow through it again… but not much. This was followed by reconnecting the leaking Energon lines. Finally Hazmat closed up his Hazmat Armor, one layer of insulation at a time. His right servo retracted into his hands and a welder extended out in its place and he began to weld his armor shut. By the time he was finished with the last weld Hazmat was gritting his teeth in pain since the pain killer had worn off. If only he could tell his armor to turn off occationally!
But the repairs were done and it was now up to his auto-repair systems to fix the rest of the damage. It could do it but it would take time. Retracting his welder so he could use his servo again, Hazmat slowly rose by placing his weight on his left leg, than slowly applied weight to his right leg. It held. He tried to take a hesitant step, only to find his right ankle joint was weak due to lack of hydraulic fluids reaching the pede. It was going to be a long limp back to his shelter, and since he had to climb over some debris transforming into his alternate to get there wasn’t going to be an option. Seeing no other option, Hazmat right servo reached down to his right pede and grabbed a piece of metal to use it as a crutch. It held his weight, but barely.
It was a long and hard journey but Hazmat finally managed to get back to his shelter. It wasn’t much, or at least it wasn’t much now. Before it had been one of the many reclamation centers that dotted Cybertron’s underground. Now it was just another destroyed structure. Well, okay not entirely destroyed since it’s lower levels were still fairly intact, thanks to the fact that this reclamation center also served as a hub for custodial mechs to dump their detoxified cargo, get backup for a rather large cleanup job… or get repairs after running into something or someone rather bad in Cybertron’s underground. As a matter of fact this particular reclamation center was the closest one to the Decagon, though Hazmat had only been here once which was to refuel while on his way to Kaon with a shipment of hazmat cars. It wasn’t long afterwards that the Great War had begun and Hazmat temporarily joined the Decepticons before coming to his senses and switching to the Autobots.
Hazmat winced as he stepped down on his patched up leg once again, and looked up at the large contraption that he had set by the only entrance into his shelter; one of the last remaining remnants of his military carrier during the great war, a turret car which Hazmat had pulled himself during the great war. It was the only part of his convoy that had survived during the battle that ended with Smokestack missing the Exodus and all of his troops dying. Not knowing what he would be up against on this dead world, Hazmat had kept these turret cars with him during his travels throughout the dead planet’s destroyed surface and underground… only to run into only corpses that were already gun-metal gray or others that were so much worse off than him that killing them was more like putting them out of their misery then an actually battle. Eventually when Hazmat found this reclamation center and made it his shelter, he simply parked the turret car by the entrance into the shelter to act as means of self-defense if someone tried to attack his shelter. However after so many vorns went by without anyone showing up, Hazmat drained them of their Energon for his consumption. Now it was just an ornament that was rusting and gathering dust. The old Autobot limbed up to the mobile artillery and placed his left servo on it for support while he continued to limp into his shelter. So much time has passed, and I’m still relying on my allies for support… he thought as he carefully let go of the car and then placed a servo on the wall of the rectangular corridor that lead into his shelter. As he did so the only thing he could hear was the clunk clunk clunk of his large feet, along with the occational clang of his make-shift crutch.
At the end of the corridor was Hazmat’s shelter. As he limbed his way into the shelter he eyed everything carefully to make sure it was all still in place and functional, even with a big gun sitting on his front door that didn’t mean it would deter everyone that was desperate. The shelter was fairly drab but it was clean and livable… it was the home of a custodian after all. The room had been fashioned with a Cybertronian-sized couch and a few tables, a pair of Energon processors, couple of other medical tools, and some other repair tools… all of which Hazmat made use of. The couch was where he’d lie down to recharge… if he could get himself to recharge that is since he had some much trouble doing so since he always had recharge-mares. The tables acted as work benches since sometimes the custodian mech needed to make repairs to parts of his shelter… it was partly blasted apart. He had also made some modifications to one of the Energon processors using an emitter and several filters he had salvaged from a dead custodian bot he had found at one point, converting it into an Energon filtration machine. Hazmat carefully walked over to the filtration machine and leaned his waist against the table so he could use both servos instead only using one servo and having the other one occupied with holding himself up with his crutch. Reaching into his side mounted compartments with both arms, Hazmat lifted out the two cubes of Energon he had managed to salvage from the tower he had climbed. He placed them both down on the table and carefully removed their lids to reveal the Energon he had found earlier and frowned as a stream of golden light was emitted from his eyes and scanned the Energon for any contaminants… and found plenty of rust flakes. If he drank it like this his body would reject it… followed by him ‘ejecting’ it through regurgitation. He never experienced it and he had no plans too. So instead he simply picked up both cubes of Energon and slowly poured them into the Energon filter, closed the lid, and turned the device on. The filtration process would remove any contaminates from the Energon making it completely drinkable… though it would take quite a while.
With nothing to do but wait, Hazmat started to turn around and limp over to the couch but stopped half way over to glance at what was sitting in the back of the shelter, and the reason why he picked this as his shelter instead of somewhere else; the long range ground bridge that was still functional. When he first found it Hazmat had drained it of nearly all its Energon to stay alive, but when he realized that he just might have to make a run for it through through the bridge he left just enough energy in it for him to make a getaway. He wasn’t an expert on using ground bridges, but he had an idea he left enough Energon since the machine had a gauge. While it didn’t do much else to help Hazmat stay alive, he did occasionally glance at it to see if it’s radar was detecting anything he should be concerned about.
Which was why when he glanced over at the ground bridge while walking towards the couch he stopped. Every single time he had looked over at the ground bridge the displays had looked the same every time… though this time there was a new red light, and it wasn’t coming from the radar. Puzzled, Hazmat started to limp over to the ground bridge, his patched leg letting out a groaning sound each time he took a step. He was figuring the system was having an error and it needed to be repaired. Why not? It had gone without repairs for ages and that was before he found it… and without having anyway to fix it he just kinda left it. He was still surprised it was functional at all, let alone at a good efficacy. However when Hazmat had gotten over to the ground bridge control panel, his jaw nearly fell off of his helm; it was the ground bridge’s comm relay that was blinking! ”That can’t be right…” Hazmat said, thinking out loud, as he activated the diagnostic cycle for the ground bridge. After a moment the readout of the diagnostic’s results were deplayed, and Hazmat’s optics widened… and widened… and widened till they were about to pop out of his helm.
The ground bridge was receiving an incoming message from orbit! The ground bridge terminal had been broadcasting a signal this whole time and Hazmat didn’t even know it… and it was receiving a return signal on that broadcast! Hazmat wasn’t sure what to do! For all he knew this could’ve been a Decepticon contacting the ground bridge… or maybe it could’ve been an Autobot… or maybe a living Priest of Primius visiting Cybertron to see how the dead planet was doing and just happened to detect the ground bridge signal. Or maybe it was some passing none Cybertronian ship. Whichever it was, Hazmat wasn’t going to let an opportunity to leave Cybertron to pass up and he pressed the transparent blue button on the display to activate his end of the comm.
”This is Hazmat, commanding officer of Autobot mobile artillery unit 5567-Zeta, and the Zeta Company. To whom am I speaking with?” was what came out of his vocalizer. Now… to wait for a reply from whomever was on the other end of the line.