[ti]Ep 2[/ti]Drop-pod crash! [Open]
May 1, 2017 17:22:40 GMT -5
Post by Sparkplug on May 1, 2017 17:22:40 GMT -5
Episode 2 | Week 3 | Day 6
The Earth hung against the stars, glowing in the brilliant sunlight as it turned with majestic slowness. Streaks and whorls of white cloud like fingerprints obscured much of the surface below, allowing emerald green, warm orange and ocean blue to gleam through the gaps. It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring sight, full of natural wonder and celestial glory.
The view was completely and utterly ruined by the flea-bag tramp freighter limping smokily into something that, if looked at with a very generous eye, could be called an orbit. The running lights flickered with an irritating 43Hz oscillation, and a dirty ion exhaust trailed behind it. It was evident in every half-tightened bolt and battered panel of it that this was the kind of ship that should have been scrapped long ago, and possibly had been.
With begrudging effort, a hatch slowly and hesitantly winched open on one flank, and little by little, the blunt, scorched nose of a one-use drop-pod eased out into the sunlight. For a few minutes, nothing further happened. Then, with a sharp kick of movement, the drop-pod was flung out of the bay into its own decaying orbit. A stuttering burst of incongruously white fire burst from its retrorockets, and as its orbital speed dropped like a stone, the pod began to curve down towards the thickening atmosphere.
Without bothering to watch the result, the freighter lurched into movement, and peeled away towards the distant stars.
Some aircraft, some highly advanced aircraft, are designed to deflect and smooth through the probing layers of electromagnetic radiation that seek to locate them from the ground. Such aircraft can be termed 'radar neutral'.
The pod, as it roared through the atmosphere in a long, drawn out tunnel of smoke and fire, could only be described as 'radar contemptuous', an utterly unmistakable mass of hurtling metal with all the subtlety of a major earthquake and none of the scenic charm. Fitful bursts of the retrorockets punctuated its fall with stammering thunder as it ploughed heavily through the sky.
Within the dense, cramped confines of the pod, the descent was illuminated by flaring red error warnings, and narrated by a virulent string of Cybertronian curses.
"-glitch-eating, sump-sucking, rust-licking, factory recalled heap of virulent unrecyclable slag! Do not crash in that slimy, salty, circuit destroying excuse for a liquid! Oh, you half-cocked, incompetent, miserable can of organic fecal matter!"
A new constellation of red lights lit up, bathing the cramped interior with more urgent reds and yellows, then abruptly went out again with an electrical crackle and a dim blue flash behind the instrument panel.
"-festering, square-wheeled, sludge-caked, slag-mouthed-"
An explosion towards the rear of the craft threw shards of metal and lumps of thruster to the wind.
"-unscratchable pustule on Unicron's exhaust vent!"
The speeding blue ocean below abruptly gave way to solid land, the towns and cities of coastal Morocco flashing by beneath the pod's crumbling panels. Those fell behind in turn, and in its last seconds of 'flight', the pod skimmed over orange and brown sand, broken up by rock and sprinkled with handfuls of skinny, inconceivably stubborn trees. Then, with all the grace of a furious elephant dropped from orbit, the pod hit the ground.
The thunder of impact boomed across the landscape, a vast fountain of sand and rocks erupting into the air. The larger lumps rained down in a cacophony of clangs, leaving the lighter dust and thin soil to slowly settle.
From the cracked, ruined pod, a female voice said resignedly over the crackle of the small fires, "Ow."
Everything was still for a few minutes more of concentrated nothing, flavoured by the nearer trees catching on fire and settling down to a steady burn. Then, tentatively, a handful of tiny probes, each no more than half the size of a terrestrial golf ball, leaked out of the split in the pod's flank, and floated off in different directions. Tiny blue beams of light lanced from them as they flew, dancing over the landscape, tasting and measuring.
"Nothing, nothing, nothing but rocks and sand... is there a single piece of refined metal on this whole darn planet?" grumbled the voice from within the pod. "...oh, hang on, now. What do we have here?"
One of the probes had discovered a rudimentary roadway, packed rock pounded into the near-desert. Trailing along it for a couple of kilometres, its highly specialised senses picked out refined, structured metal, and darted towards it. The shape of several vehicles lay half-buried under the sand, caught in a years-ago sandstorm and abandoned there. The tattered remains of colourful signs and the abraded remains of stickers and logos marked the vehicles out as the discarded left-overs of some kind of rally.
"Pretty messed up, but nothing I can't reconstruct... ow, it really is getting pretty hot in here," mused the voice from the pod. "Okay. That one."
The hovering probe projected a bright blue grid of light, lingering on the surface of the sand for an instant before penetrating through it to pick out the chassis of the six-wheeled vehicle beneath. A floating schematic sparkled in the air as missing components were extrapolated, and the erosion of years reversed. Then, with an electronic squeak, the probe died, its task complete.
The stillness of the pod crash site was abruptly broken. A slim grey hand groped out of the split in the side of the pod, then gripped the edge. Another gripped the opposite side, and forced the gap open a little wider with a shriek of rending metal. Then, finally, a slender mechanical figure staggered out into the daylight.
She was shorter than most mechs, her chassis primarily clean white, picked out with forest green accents. Her chestplate curved outwards in twin rises, necessitated by the large wheels half-slotted into her back parallel to her spine. Her thighs were pierced by a second set of wheels, tread visible both front and back, and her peds were structured around a third pair, slotted vertically into her calves and forming the bulk of her ankles.
Where her body broke from the loose standards of most of her kind was her left arm, considerably longer than her right, and dangling down to calf-level. Two elbows spaced equally down its length gave the limb an odd, unnatural grace in its movements, and it gleamed an unpainted silver in the sunlight. A stark purple Decepticon symbol was incised into the upper centre of her chestplate. Bright green optics gleamed as she waved away the dust, coughing air through her vents to clear her filters.
"Terrible idea. Worst idea I've ever had," she muttered to herself, brushing off a tangled, severed section of cable from the pod's interior. "Buying passage with organics? Never again."
She looked around at the rumpled sands, scattered around her smouldering impact crater, and vented a sigh. "Guess it was too much to ask that I'd come down somewhere with a civilisation. Or friendly. Or hostile. I mean, at least then I could try a few things, see how those rotaries are working out..."
Placing a finger to the side of her helm, she accessed her hideously out-of-date frequency library, and broadcast on an elderly encryption scheme, "Hi! Sparkplug, reporting arrival, and distress, and also sand. So much sand. Any friendly forces? Please respond."
The hiss of static answered her. With another vented sigh of exasperation, she tried a few more frequencies, amping up her broadcast. "Seriously, Sparkplug requesting someone to get me out of here, or at least something to shoot at. Talk to me."
The Earth hung against the stars, glowing in the brilliant sunlight as it turned with majestic slowness. Streaks and whorls of white cloud like fingerprints obscured much of the surface below, allowing emerald green, warm orange and ocean blue to gleam through the gaps. It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring sight, full of natural wonder and celestial glory.
The view was completely and utterly ruined by the flea-bag tramp freighter limping smokily into something that, if looked at with a very generous eye, could be called an orbit. The running lights flickered with an irritating 43Hz oscillation, and a dirty ion exhaust trailed behind it. It was evident in every half-tightened bolt and battered panel of it that this was the kind of ship that should have been scrapped long ago, and possibly had been.
With begrudging effort, a hatch slowly and hesitantly winched open on one flank, and little by little, the blunt, scorched nose of a one-use drop-pod eased out into the sunlight. For a few minutes, nothing further happened. Then, with a sharp kick of movement, the drop-pod was flung out of the bay into its own decaying orbit. A stuttering burst of incongruously white fire burst from its retrorockets, and as its orbital speed dropped like a stone, the pod began to curve down towards the thickening atmosphere.
Without bothering to watch the result, the freighter lurched into movement, and peeled away towards the distant stars.
Some aircraft, some highly advanced aircraft, are designed to deflect and smooth through the probing layers of electromagnetic radiation that seek to locate them from the ground. Such aircraft can be termed 'radar neutral'.
The pod, as it roared through the atmosphere in a long, drawn out tunnel of smoke and fire, could only be described as 'radar contemptuous', an utterly unmistakable mass of hurtling metal with all the subtlety of a major earthquake and none of the scenic charm. Fitful bursts of the retrorockets punctuated its fall with stammering thunder as it ploughed heavily through the sky.
Within the dense, cramped confines of the pod, the descent was illuminated by flaring red error warnings, and narrated by a virulent string of Cybertronian curses.
"-glitch-eating, sump-sucking, rust-licking, factory recalled heap of virulent unrecyclable slag! Do not crash in that slimy, salty, circuit destroying excuse for a liquid! Oh, you half-cocked, incompetent, miserable can of organic fecal matter!"
A new constellation of red lights lit up, bathing the cramped interior with more urgent reds and yellows, then abruptly went out again with an electrical crackle and a dim blue flash behind the instrument panel.
"-festering, square-wheeled, sludge-caked, slag-mouthed-"
An explosion towards the rear of the craft threw shards of metal and lumps of thruster to the wind.
"-unscratchable pustule on Unicron's exhaust vent!"
The speeding blue ocean below abruptly gave way to solid land, the towns and cities of coastal Morocco flashing by beneath the pod's crumbling panels. Those fell behind in turn, and in its last seconds of 'flight', the pod skimmed over orange and brown sand, broken up by rock and sprinkled with handfuls of skinny, inconceivably stubborn trees. Then, with all the grace of a furious elephant dropped from orbit, the pod hit the ground.
The thunder of impact boomed across the landscape, a vast fountain of sand and rocks erupting into the air. The larger lumps rained down in a cacophony of clangs, leaving the lighter dust and thin soil to slowly settle.
From the cracked, ruined pod, a female voice said resignedly over the crackle of the small fires, "Ow."
Everything was still for a few minutes more of concentrated nothing, flavoured by the nearer trees catching on fire and settling down to a steady burn. Then, tentatively, a handful of tiny probes, each no more than half the size of a terrestrial golf ball, leaked out of the split in the pod's flank, and floated off in different directions. Tiny blue beams of light lanced from them as they flew, dancing over the landscape, tasting and measuring.
"Nothing, nothing, nothing but rocks and sand... is there a single piece of refined metal on this whole darn planet?" grumbled the voice from within the pod. "...oh, hang on, now. What do we have here?"
One of the probes had discovered a rudimentary roadway, packed rock pounded into the near-desert. Trailing along it for a couple of kilometres, its highly specialised senses picked out refined, structured metal, and darted towards it. The shape of several vehicles lay half-buried under the sand, caught in a years-ago sandstorm and abandoned there. The tattered remains of colourful signs and the abraded remains of stickers and logos marked the vehicles out as the discarded left-overs of some kind of rally.
"Pretty messed up, but nothing I can't reconstruct... ow, it really is getting pretty hot in here," mused the voice from the pod. "Okay. That one."
The hovering probe projected a bright blue grid of light, lingering on the surface of the sand for an instant before penetrating through it to pick out the chassis of the six-wheeled vehicle beneath. A floating schematic sparkled in the air as missing components were extrapolated, and the erosion of years reversed. Then, with an electronic squeak, the probe died, its task complete.
The stillness of the pod crash site was abruptly broken. A slim grey hand groped out of the split in the side of the pod, then gripped the edge. Another gripped the opposite side, and forced the gap open a little wider with a shriek of rending metal. Then, finally, a slender mechanical figure staggered out into the daylight.
She was shorter than most mechs, her chassis primarily clean white, picked out with forest green accents. Her chestplate curved outwards in twin rises, necessitated by the large wheels half-slotted into her back parallel to her spine. Her thighs were pierced by a second set of wheels, tread visible both front and back, and her peds were structured around a third pair, slotted vertically into her calves and forming the bulk of her ankles.
Where her body broke from the loose standards of most of her kind was her left arm, considerably longer than her right, and dangling down to calf-level. Two elbows spaced equally down its length gave the limb an odd, unnatural grace in its movements, and it gleamed an unpainted silver in the sunlight. A stark purple Decepticon symbol was incised into the upper centre of her chestplate. Bright green optics gleamed as she waved away the dust, coughing air through her vents to clear her filters.
"Terrible idea. Worst idea I've ever had," she muttered to herself, brushing off a tangled, severed section of cable from the pod's interior. "Buying passage with organics? Never again."
She looked around at the rumpled sands, scattered around her smouldering impact crater, and vented a sigh. "Guess it was too much to ask that I'd come down somewhere with a civilisation. Or friendly. Or hostile. I mean, at least then I could try a few things, see how those rotaries are working out..."
Placing a finger to the side of her helm, she accessed her hideously out-of-date frequency library, and broadcast on an elderly encryption scheme, "Hi! Sparkplug, reporting arrival, and distress, and also sand. So much sand. Any friendly forces? Please respond."
The hiss of static answered her. With another vented sigh of exasperation, she tried a few more frequencies, amping up her broadcast. "Seriously, Sparkplug requesting someone to get me out of here, or at least something to shoot at. Talk to me."
