[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Nearline Moment (closed)

[Pyrotech]

Week 2, Day 6 - Sparkplug and Pyrotech

Dawn was creeping forward onto Steens Mountain. The sky was at half light, where the purple dark of the night was beginning to be touched with a faint hint of peach along the horizon. Air was cook and crisp; barren rock and scrubby plants were flecked with silver dew. A pika licked at the condensation on a patch of woody leaves before he sat up and began to stuff mouthfuls of greenery into his chubby face.

There was a far off series of yaps; a coyote lifting her voice to giggle at the relative silence. The pika didn't even bat an eye. Long distance away, and he was in no danger of becoming breakfast. Silence rippled back over the empty terrain; the coyote's laughter was lost among the ridges of basalt.

Even the Decepticon base in the remote hills of Oregon was fairly quiet.

Corridors that were usually filled with the sound of voices and thudding footsteps were quiet. It was the time when only a few Vehicons still remained at work, digging out new tunnels and sections of the curving stone halls, deferring with a nod and a salute when one of the higher-ups passed on by.

Dug deep down within the hillside were the storerooms. As in most of the base, there were no doors; no need for them.

Right now, the chambers were quiet and dim. The small lights that were set into the walls glowed faintly, illuminating the carefully organized crates and equipment. Girders rested in a stack off to one side, along with a bundle of drainage pipes. Several chunks of scaffolding were bolted to the back wall of the stone chamber as makeshift shelves.

On those rested bin after bin of scrap. To one side was a massive blade that had once belonged on a backhoe, and there were large containers full of re-purposed items, both human and Cybertronian. Huge wooden spools of black cable were set in a corner, piled neatly on top of each other. One of the cables was being fed through a cutter; the neatly stripped end gleamed with a pale, copper twist.

Pyrotech slid another section of wire forward, measuring out exactly what was needed. He was working late, or perhaps he was working early.

Perhaps both; the architect had been constantly busy since the outpost had become the center of command for the Decepticons. A frown touched the corner of his mouth; it had been excellent planning on his part to steal this cable when he first arrived back in the states, and he had put a good stockpile in, but...

His resources were dwindling fast with what had to be done to get this outpost expanded so quickly.

They were going to have to plan to raid somewhere soon. As soon as the rest of the chaos got under control and they had a better handle on just what mechs and resources were available to them. Without the Nemesis, it was an entirely different world for most of them.

Most of them. Not him. First they'd sent him to forsaken, icy Alaska. Then done it even better by taking him Australia.

His jaw tightened, his optics narrowed as he began to loop the cable, passing it through his palm and around his elbow for neat transport back upstairs. Australia.  Pyrotech didn't like to think about it.

Any of it.

Especially-

That grey and unpleasant path of thought was interrupted by the grinding noise of the empty cable spool against the rock floor. The machine had finished cutting through the end.

[Sparkplug]

It was a quiet, quiet morning in the depths of the mountain. The lighting in the corridors belied it, as stark and functional as ever, but perhaps a sense of the outside world filtered in; a hush, as the bulk of the garrison rested.

Sparkplug's recharge cycle time had always been a bit sporadic, exaggerated by the uncountable vorns living and working with an ever-dwindling gang of researchers to whom the idea of military discipline was a fading memory, and she hadn't fully adjusted to the day-night cycle yet. Although, even if she had, being dispatched to the opposite side of the planet to build up a new base in the Urals would have messed it up anyway.

Easier to just work to her own timetable. And a time when where weren't crowds of vehicons choking the passageways was as good a time as any to get things done. A comm request, a swirling vortex, and here she was, back in the crushingly claustrophobic confines of Blackrock. She had a mission in mind.

She was an excellent engineer, as she'd be the first to point out, but even the best engineers had to work with something. And as starved as Blackrock was for resources, the bare mining tunnels under the Urals had even less.

So, she was here to requisition a few supplies.

And if no mecha actually noticed that she'd requisitioned them, that might be for the best.

Humming a sneaky tune to herself, she navigated deeper and deeper into the mountain, hiking up the front of her pedes a bit and putting her weight on the tyres that made up the bulk of each pede complex. Occasionally, her field radiating playful mischief, she gave in to the urge to begin theatrically sneaking, flattening herself against corridor corners and peeking around them.

All quiet. All dimly lit. She was a master of stealth!

Sighting the doorless archway of the main storeroom, Sparkplug grinned, murmuring to herself, "Stealth success." Abandoning her sneaky crouch, she straightened up and strolled through the door. She sure could use-

There was another mecha in the storeroom.

A big, red mecha with a cannon on his shoulder, which - her instinctive rummage through her memory banks suggested - was probably Pyrotech, the mech that had built the place to begin with, and was, command structure aside, the closest the place had to an owner.

Stealth failure.

"Uhh," Sparkplug greeted him, then shook herself and added more coherently, "...good morning? Nice cannon."

[Pyrotech]

Absorbed in a rather ugly memory, Pyrotech hadn't been paying much attention to much outside of the cable he'd been winding up tightly.

At the sudden burble of speech, he paused, his back still turned to whomever was at the door. The doors behind his shoulders seemed to stiffen just as a flash of utter annoyance curled across the mech's features, his jaw tightening as the cable grew taunt against his elbow and palm. Pyrotech focused on the wall as if he was hoping it would turn into a giant portal full of angry teeth and suck whomever was disturbing him straight down an empty gullet.

As the voice continued though, he realized it was two things- one, it was succinct and polite. Two, it was female. Not another Vehicon stumbling down to bring whatever problem that was the most pressing at the time. Mind you, what a lot of them considered problems were low on his list. Such as private washracks. Not what he needed to deal with right now.

The frustrated expression on his face smoothed out, and the stiffness of his frame relaxed ever so slightly.

Thank goodness. If he had to hear one more complaint about this base...

Slowly, the red mech turned around. The faint overhead lights shone off his glossy finish and illuminated his bright chrome.

"Good morning," he said politely. His accent brushed across those words, cultured and proper. He straightened up and shook the the last of the frustration from his frame, and it was replaced with a soft slope of his shoulders. There was a slight incline of his head before he glanced at the cannon on his shoulder and then back to the femme. "Well, thank you. That's the kindest thing I've heard involving me in the last day or so."

"Please, do come in," he encouraged, with a careful gesture of his free hand. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

A soft, tired-sounding chuckle escaped him. "Besides a door, of course."

[Sparkplug]

It seemed as though the red mech had no more expected to be disturbed than she'd expected to find some mecha in the storage room already; the little hiking up of his doors was a dead giveaway. All the same, the moment of tense probably-surprise passed, and when he turned, it was to be surprisingly civil. Towerling accent, or something like it, she noted idly.

"Would you believe, doors are like, the one thing I don't actually need?" she replied, humour in her field. The whole base had been probably been bothering him for more privacy, judging from his weary tone, and that, at least, was one problem she didn't need to drop on him.

"I'm Sparkplug. Research officer. General tinkerer with things that make a cloud of pretty explosions and lights. You must be Pyrotech, right? Set this place up to begin with? You'd have thought that the grease-licking herd of tin-plated glitches cluttering up your halls would be grateful you had this nice, decently organised base set up, not complaining to you about it."

Sparkplug shook her helm. "Anyways, Lord Starscream sent me off a few planetary cycles ago to the other side of this salty, mucky rockball, to set up a weapons lab in an old mine. Vega and I have been clearing and tidying the place, seeing what bits have uses. Fun challenge, actually. Lots of space, lots of repurposing going on. Generator's no good right now, so I'm running the whole place off a spliced-in feed from the on-board reactor of a derelict driller. Bit of a mess. Mind you, got doors, got some slabs of raw metal, no hordes bashing into me every time I take three steps. Been a nice change."

Looking around herself, Sparkplug shrugged her shoulders, the embedded headlights in her shoulderguards rising and falling. "What I could use is the fiddly stuff. Fasteners, bolts, small spare parts. A couple of high-ticket items like monitors would help; not going to be making any of those from scratch any time soon. I'm pretty good at making do, but there's a time when you just need the basics to hand. I know Blackridge is as starved for resources as anywhere, but... well. Seemed worth a check."

The odds of getting anything much from Blackridge had plummeted from the moment she'd been caught wandering into the storage bay, but... you never knew. Maybe Pyrotech would actually have something going spare that she could fix up.

Her bright optics lingered on his shoulder for a moment; smoothbore, no rifling. Maybe more like a pressure cylinder than a barrel. Odd. Finding out about the exact nature of his weapons systems tagged itself onto her list of things to do. Maybe, even if she came away with no spare parts, the trip wouldn't have been wasted.

[Pyrotech]

"Well, then you're one of the very few who doesn't," he said.

Everyone wanted doors. It was one of the things Pyrotech had gotten the most requests for. Privacy.

This base had not been built for privacy. At least not the privacy of his troops. It had been built for his, of course. Pyrotech valued the ability to shut a door and work without being disturbed.

What he didn't value was those underneath his command having secrets. As an architect, he understood the power within spaces. It was how it had worked on Cybertron. If you felt you were safe, you would talk to others. Their agreement gave you power, and it would escalate, because that's how those things went, and soon, you would start to discuss things behind them that perhaps you might not dream of otherwise.

Whisper. Complain. Create as much dissent behind someone's back when you didn't agree with the way things were being done. You could do them better, of course.

So, there were no doors for those under his command, and he had done it that way since Alaska. It had solved many of his problems, and those that still continued to cause dissent?

Well, he had a simple, straightforward solution for that too. That was the easy one. Ah well, his mind was wandering, and his moment of silence could certainly be taken as a rather rude response. Which was not his intent at all. The white and green femme seemed at least cheerful and goal driven, and he always appreciated that. She was also lovely, and he appreciated that too. However, he simply, quietly kept that observation politely to himself, as always. 

"Sparkplug," he said thoughtfully as he offered her a courteous nod. "The weapons smith, correct? It is my pleasure. I remember your dossier, but yes, Lord Starscream mentioned you as well. I've heard you are an excellent fighter, and that you stepped up to scatter and destroy a MECH ambush. Not many have come face to face with them and had the chance to give them what they deserve."

Crimson optics narrowed, but it was not directed at her in the slightest. His shoulder mounted weapon twitched, but he was incredibly careful to keep it pointed away from her and to the ground.

He sighed, though, a soft puff of air escaping out of the corner of his mouth before he shrugged and laughed softly. The ladder behind his other shoulder rattled and then stilled.

"No one is grateful usually for those who create what is simply part of the background, Sparkplug. I don't take it personally at this point of things, I do what needs to be done. Besides, this also isn't a ship that caters to their every need. It is what it is supposed to be, and wasn't meant to house this many even on a good day."

He shifted his weight and then brought up a dark hand and rubbed his chin. "A weapons lab? Smart on both of your parts. One of the things that bothers me dearly is that at the moment, is that this is for the moment the main concentration of the Decepticons. If the Autobots find us - and believe me, with the amount of activity lately, it will happen at some point - we need to have other places and other outposts set up. Proactive. Not reactive.

"But- ah, enough about that," he said, lowering his hand with a small wave as if he was brushing off that negative thought. "Your space sounds well-built, old mines are useful. I think for me the generator was the hardest part of this outpost. I stole mine from the humans, but it took a good year of searching to find one that was in a position where it could do the job I needed from it and that I could take it and not have it be noticed immediately. Often they warehouse them, though. I'd do some research and start there."

A wry smile. "No doubt you'd be far faster at modifying it than I was. Your skills are absolutely more advanced than mine, I'm sure.

"As far as resources go," he continued. "I may have some things in the lower storage area you might find useful? I can take you down there, if you'd like. I'm afraid I have no monitors though, I haven't been that lucky outside of the few they salvage from the ship, and those are in need of serious repair. Saltwater is brutal. Oceans are something I will not miss when we leave this planet."

[Sparkplug]

Cocking her helm and resting one hand on her hip as she listened, Sparkplug smiled at the crimson mech, delighted that he was willing to help and rather enjoying listening to his accent. He seemed rather fed up and irritated, but not at her, and she sure couldn't begrudge him that.

It was nice to be recognised for her work, too.

"That giant, filthy puddle of organic muck and sediment? Yeah, I am not in favour of that damn stuff," she agreed. "Ruins everything it touches. It's going to be a hell of a job to recover the Nemesis after being left down there this long. Hopefully some of the interior voids haven't been compromised, but when I was evacuating, you could hear the walls buckling in under the load. Just wasn't built for that level of positive external pressure. Poor thing probably thinks its been stuck in a gas giant. Anyway. Yeah, please, show me the lower storage area! Didn't know there were two."

Following in his wake at a slow stroll, she went on amiably, "I'm sure you can do a fine job with the salvage, you Primus-damned flatterer." Such compliments! This mech definitely had an understated kind of charm. "Tell you what, though, I'm happy to give a hand in fixing up whatever you've got down here that's gotten damaged, I am pretty good at that. Payment for the parts and whatever hints you can give about sourcing a reactor from the locals."

Running a base off a native power source... it just wouldn't have occurred to her. Getting raw materials from them, sure, and she'd picked out a decent slew of pre-built stuff for her Nemesis-salvage plan, but something as central as a reactor... well, after her brush with MECH, she should have known to take the human's tech level a little bit more seriously.

"...yeah, it had occurred to me that we might need Sparklabs as a back-up location or staging point eventually," she agreed. "Don't get me wrong, it couldn't take the number of troops you've got kicking around here, even less so than this place could when the ship went down, but there's plenty of room to expand down there. Be a shame, though. Got to admit, I'm enjoying the quiet with just me and Vee fixing the place up. You should pop by sometime, see what we're knocking together."

[Pyrotech]

Pyrotech nodded. "Of course."

Fastidiously, he dusted a line of grit off of his hands before he moved past her out of the storage-room. He'd only gone a few strides when he politely slowed down to let Sparkplug catch up a few strides and walk beside him if she wished.

Around them, the rough hewn walls were illuminated softly with scavenged, recessed rounds of lighting. Unlike the cold tones of the Nemesis halls, these were a yellowish, warm light that touched the stone and created bands and ribbons of colors, reds, browns, golds. As they walked, it was obvious that the construction within here was not in sharp corners or angles; everything was soft and rounded, following the natural lines and layers of the sandstone. There was no jarring attempt to hack it into the sharper edges and angles familiar to Cybertronian eyes and understanding.

This base took into account the strengths and weaknesses within the material used to create it. A squared off corner could easily be struck by a wing, a foot, an elbow. A rounded one was more likely to hold up to the way Cybertronians tended to live and move within tight spaces.

He had to agree with her though. If the Nemesis was submerged for as long as he expected it to be, there would undoubtedly be sections that were compromised completely. If he was being honest with himself, the amount of work required to bring the ship back up and then repair it was going to be immense and intense, and there would no doubt be parts of it that simply couldn't be repaired as long as they remained on Earth.

At her comment about flattery, he merely inclined his head and rolled one sleek shoulder into a small shrug.

It had been a necessity to learn to salvage since he'd been stationed here. Over the years, he'd found himself with the firm belief that some of the commanding officers didn't understand a single thing about what you needed to actually create a building. You're an architect? You built places back on Cybertron? Wonderful, here's two girders, a box of the wrong sized bolts, and a clump of cables, you should be able to make a useful structure right?

Oh, and here, we'll assign you this team of mechs who have no experience in anything remotely helpful for the task we want you to undertake.

Ah well. Besides, he only flattered when he felt it was deserved. This was one of the more pleasant starts to a conversation that he'd had in weeks. She had treated his job, his skills, and his situation with respect, and that was a refreshing change. If he had to hear one more comment from certain souls about the amount of dirt, he was going to personally take someone out into the scrub and stone and bury them in a hole up to their neck for a few days to let them work on an attitude adjustment.

Or fill it all the way in and leave them there. Either way would be fine with him.

"Thank you for the offer," he said after a moment to Sparkplug. "I get the sheer amount of work you no doubt find ahead of you. However, if you find the time fix up a few things down here in trade, I'd appreciate it. Most of the things I have managed to scrounge and cobble were sitting in storage on the Nemesis for specific reasons."

"Outdated, broken reasons," he reiterated as they walked.

"Regardless, I do have to say I agree with you. This situation isn't ideal. This base was never meant to house the entirety of the Nemesis, and there will come a point where expansion isn't going to be feasible or concealable, so... I hope there has been some talk about that."

He turned down a smooth-bored hall to their right. Unlike the more recent construction, the walls were finished and sanded down flat.  This was obviously an older section of the outpost, and it showed that there had been time to build with a skilled hand down here. Even the overhead venting pipes were neat and tidy. They were absolutely functional, but their turns and twists were also decorative with the lines of softly burnished grey against the red-toned stone. The welds at the bends were immaculate, not a single hasty drip of metal or discolored splotches along any of the metal.

"To be honest, I'd absolutely enjoy a visit at some point," Pyrotech admitted. The doors behind his shoulders angled slightly downward. "Since I was reassigned, I haven't had much contact with- well, much at all."

Their footfalls were hushed here, the thick, velvety dirt of the floor had been sifted and packed so tightly that it didn't scuff under the weight of either Cybertronian.

"However, I do understand enjoying the quiet. I find it easy to be efficient when surrounded by it."

"You as well, I assume?" he inquired. 

[Sparkplug]

Did she like working in the quiet?

Sparkplug frowned thoughtfully, running a finger over her lips. "I'm not sure I'd go that far. Heck, when I'm concentrating, I like some music blasting out good'n loud, and when I'm stuck on something, it's good to have someone to wander up to and have a chat about what you're working on. Even if they're not a specialist, just chatting about it can help a lot. But..."

She nodded upwards, towards the slumbering mass of the base above them. "Got to admit, I was finding all this a bit hard to take. Before I got the broadcast and set off for this mucky rockball, I was on a research base. Antilla 4, a moon that's barely an asteroid with delusions of grandeur. Emptied out over the years, til there was just the four of us still working there, rattling around in a facility that housed hundreds. Got used to having space to move around, plenty of room to be alone while I worked if I wanted to be. It's been good to have that back. Vee's a great partner to have; she knows when to stay near, and when to let me alone."

The note of affection in her tone was underscored by her field; rather more than that merely between work colleagues. "I think she'd like to meet you, if she hasn't already. And I'm sure you could find lots of nice things to say to her, too, you charmer." Sparkplug grinned teasingly. "Drop by anytime, and I do mean that. Just give a quick headsup over the comms, bridge over, and we'd be glad to show you around. I'm sure you could use the peace and quiet, and it's easy to spin it as a structural inspection."

Rounding a corner, Sparkplug reached out with her long left arm, stroking her fingers across the banding in the rocks. It really was very pretty down in the lower tunnels, prettier than the stone they got higher up. Or... actually no, this was the same stone. Wasn't it?

She looked up, slightly puzzled, and her gaze caught at the neatly emplaced conduits overhead, following a subtle line of colour through the stone itself rather than a ruler-straight channel oblivious to context. "...huh."

Sparkplug paused, her gaze flickering over the overhead lights, then asked slowly, "Did you spectrum-match the lights down here to the rock? That is subtle. One thing about the Nemesis that always drove me nuts was how damn gloomy it was in there. Unicron's rusty teeth, I get 'going for a mood', but big structural ribs, loads of heavily armed soldiers running about and one dim lamp every fifty paces does not make for a happy mix. Put up a load of striplights in the lab I built - right before the big nosedive - so I could see what the hell I was doing. Would have done the same to the whole ship if I'd had the patience. This is nice."

[Pyrotech]

A Vehicon appeared from around a corner, carrying a small crate. He was obviously coming up from storage. On seeing the red mech, he quickly bobbed his head in a silent salute and shuffled aside to let them pass.

Pyrotech barely seemed to notice the worker as he listened closely to Sparkplug, his demeanor calm and quiet as they moved through the base together. Conversation didn't bother him, as long as the mech knew what they were talking about. Sparkplug was confident in word and gesture.

Ah. A partner.

The touch of affection in the white femme's voice was subtle, but noted. It was one of those things Pyrotech had found himself aware of after being invited to the fancy tower parties. Introductions all around, of course. Yet there was always someone who slipped close to someone after they offered a greeting, or left a hand longer than necessary on another's shoulder or forearm as they moved through a room full of strangers.

Sometimes though, one of the couple simply up and disappeared without a trace. Especially after the war had started in earnest. The other often remained among the waning glitz and glamour, mechanically going through the social motions and conversations around them.

Often, he'd see those affected make a slight turn here and there as if they were about to share some private joke and realize that there was no one there to understand it.

Loss brought with it distraction. He couldn't afford that for himself, but he certainly didn't begrudge it in others.

Pyrotech's doors lifted slightly as if in thought before they smoothed back into place.

"Peace and quiet would be lovely," he agreed. "I understand about large bases and limited crew. You get used to it. It allows you to get things done how you want them, not as how someone else needs them."

"If I'm being honest, I was never fond of most of the ships," he admitted, and paused to watch her tilt her head back and look up at the ceiling. The bright green glow of her optics touched on the edge of her helm and cheek. "I respected that they were designed to be utilitarian. Repaired quickly with what we had available, and made to move a massive amount of cargo and bodies through space."

"Yet there is nothing attractive about them, and I will include the Nemesis on that list. There was no time for that."

Or maybe, there was simply no joy in the work. He understood that side of things too. No time to fuss over the angles and lines of a ship. It was all about the efficient use of energy, of scrabbling for the barest of resources to get things heaved into space and then shoot other things that had been heaved into space.

"I did match them, yes," he replied. There was a note of surprise in his voice that turned to appreciation. A glance upwards; the small lights played along the stone- hues and ribbons of gold and red, bringing out the best in them. "Good eye. Also, yes, I could see the striplights being essential in a lab on that ship, and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm not surprised they didn't assign you a room with them."

A shake of his head. "Thank you, though. I don't appreciate the gloom. Watching Cybertron go dark...?"

That was enough for my lifetime."

The gleaming red mech was silent for a few strides as he came to a branch in the tunnel and turned left. The ground beneath their feet was constantly taking them downwards into the hillside. If it had been cut straight in, it would have been a rather sharp pitch. Pressed wheel-ruts were visible on the floor; the vehicons had obviously been hard at work recently.

"When did you arrive here from Antilla 4?" he asked her finally. "Recently? I have gone over some of the personnel files, but regrettably not as many as I should have."

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug strolled after the crimson mech, nodding agreeably as he talked, her field swirling with easy, unfeigned enjoyment of his company. The natural extension of their conversation about older, larger bases was to ask herself: if she had the opportunity to head back to Antilla, to have space and resources to work with again, would she?

Not without Vega. Well, fine - say she came too. Then what?

...no. Sparkplug nodded thoughtfully to herself. She'd spent quite enough time on that rock, regardless of how comfortable she'd become there. Being on Earth had many challenges, but the challenges were interesting, even if they weren't always pleasant, and there was a whole world of exciting things to explore and experience out there. No, she wanted to stay.

Might be time to be marginally less insulting to the planet, then.

"Haven't spent all that much time on ships myself," she remarked conversationally. "The ship I rode to get here, though! Oh, it was the worst. Crewed by these little organics, smaller than the natives here, even. Obviously their corridors were comically too small for me. Spent the entire journey sat on my aft in their cargo bay, trying not to bump my helm on the ceiling or go screwy from the lack of space to stretch out. When they dumped me into atmosphere in a drop pod that wasn't much better than complicated suicide, I was so grateful to be out of there I didn't even mind how it was falling apart."

A flash of distinct pleasure touched her field as he complemented her on catching the subtlety in the lights, and she followed him around the corner, nodding to the vehicon with a smile.

She let the reference to the fall of Cybertron go past without really reacting to it; her warped reprogramming had been built around giving in to the inevitability of it all and ceasing to care. Only an odd little blip flickered in her field for an instant, easily missed.

"Landed - crashed - twenty, twenty one day cycles? Something like that. Hardly anything, really. I had just enough time to start getting used to the floating doom tomb and kitting out my lab before it hit the ocean upside down. Should have seen what I started with. Old supply room, but a pipe from the racks next door had burst. Rust, floor to ceiling, and for someone that's come straight from Antilla, that isn't a welcoming sight, let me tell you. Had to cut the shelves apart and dump the pieces in the furnace for reclamation, grind and polish everything down flat before I started over."