[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Down to Earth (Crescent + Nathan, open)

[Nathan Walker]

This was certainly no commercial flight...

It was...surprisingly better, despite being crowded into a smaller area. If Nathan had to guess it was because he wasn’t pressed in with other people. There was still the element of claustrophobia that always popped up, but he worked through his breathing exercises.

“Oh...many times.”

Nathan leaned back in his seat as he watched the clouds go by, slowly working on loosening the tension in his body.

“I’m airborne qualified. Before I joined Special Forces I was a paratrooper. I don’t know if you have that on Cybertron, but it was our job to jump out of planes and land behind enemy lines. And then when I joined Special Forces, we would often use helicopters to get to where we needed to go.”

That was an experience, riding on the side of an MH-6 Little Bird with two other people and the only thing holding you in being a single hook.

“Plus I’ve done a lot of commercial air travel. Visiting friends and family, deploying to areas...things like that.”

“But it was never like this...”

[Crescent]

"What makes it different?" Crescent was curious, truth be told, about how being airborne would be perceived by a flightless species. Granted, his own had plenty of ground-bound individuals that weren't flight capable like himself...but 'humans' didn't seem to even have the capacity for such a thing to begin with.

"I have been flying since the day I was activated. I was made for the sky...but...these days, I also fear it..." Decepticons was the unspoken implication. It was no secret that Autobot fliers were vastly outnumbered by their counterparts, and every time one of them left the ground, they were putting themselves at risk. Things could turn disastrous in a matter of seconds, if one of them found themselves outnumbered in the air.

"But it is still quite beautiful up here."

He couldn't deny that. Even if flying made him uneasy more often than not now, given his circumstances, he still enjoyed taking in the view of the clouds during these peaceful moments.

[Nathan Walker]

“Well for starters there’s a lot more humans. The plane is bigger, able to seat anywhere from 50 to 300 humans depending on how big it is. They generally have you sit anywhere in a row of three, and you aren’t able to look outside unless you have a window seat.” Nathan replied, thinking back to the last time he flew a commercial flight. He had been going to Boston to visit his father’s family who lived in that region. The fact that it was a packed flight hadn’t improved his mood due to his claustrophobia...

Of course it was better than flying in the back of a C-17 or a C-5 transport aircraft. No windows, the seats were pretty awful, noisy as hell to the point where you had to wear earplugs the entire time, and you needed to bring some blankets because it was colder than a winter Arizona night.

“It’s mostly a convenience, since otherwise it would take hours or days to cross such vast distances...” he replied, thinking back to stories his grandfather had told him about his father and taking a troop ship over to England during the Second World War. Seven days on the water...Nathan would have hated that.

“So you were born like this? You didn’t get to choose if you were a flier or not?” he asked, still a bit in the dark as to how Cybertronians worked.

He would have hated to have been born a flier.

[Crescent]

What Nathan described sounded similar to an airborne transport. He had seen them before, and had a vague idea of how they worked, but of course he’d never had need for one himself.

“I was created like this. I have never driven a day in my life.” He would pause after saying this, his next words coming out more somber, in tone. “Though sometimes I wish I could. Do not misunderstand, I have pride in what I am… but the skies are not kind to Autobot fliers.” He was sure the human had noticed the disadvantage his faction had in terms of air power. How could he not have? It was blatantly obvious. Decepticons ruled the sky, and the odds were consistently in their favor.

“We are always outnumbered. We are...always fighting a losing battle.” And any time I go for a flight, I’m aware it could be my last should my enemies so graciously decide to dogpile me. That was the part he didn’t say out loud. But the implication was clear, and it still weighed on his mind. The path he had chosen was by no means an easy one, but it was the one he had told himself was right.

[Nathan Walker]

Never driven a day in his life?

Before he had joined the military Nathan would have been hard pressed to believe that someone could have never driven a day in his life before in this age. Sure they learned about other cultures in school that weren’t as developed as the United States and the western world, but it all seemed so far away when all you had were pictures on a projector screen. It wasn’t until he was in the military and had deployed to places like Urzikstan that he truly understood.

“You mean they don’t have ground transport on Cyberton unless you turn into it?”

That would be an interesting sight. That could explain how Cybertronians didn’t seem to have that much trouble navigating around human towns and cities. If everyone who did ground transport was their own transport and that transport scaled pretty accurately to human roads and such...

Now that Crescent mentioned it, he didn’t recall seeing too many Autobot aircraft. There were a few that he had been briefed on before he joined, but from what Agent Fowler had said they were few and far between.

“What keeps you going in spite of those odds?”

[Crescent]

"Mm....there were land transports, too. But the grounders would typically only use them if they needed to go across state lines. Otherwise, it was usually easier for them to just drive themselves wherever it was they need to get to. Personally, though, I've never used one. It would have just made my trip longer than it needed to be."

He wasn't trying to brag, really. It was just the truth. Seekers were some of the fastest things on Cybertron. He didn't see much of a point in riding a transport when he could get wherever he needed to be much more quickly by his own power. Sure, there had likely a handful of speedy turbo-powered aircrafts one could have hopped into back in the day, but he likely wouldn't have been able to afford them.

He found his mind wandering, until Nathan asked a question. One that caught him a bit off guard.

"I..."

How should he answer that type of question? How did he explain the reasons he fought against his own, without having to bring up his past, and his defection?

"Because it's...the right thing to do. If the Decepticon airforce guns me down one day I will...offline...I will offline knowing I fought to protect life. That's what...we biologists are supposed to do. Protect life."

That answer was...a lot darker than he'd wanted it to be. He didn't want to scare the human, or make him uncomfortable, by suddenly bringing up his own mortality. But how could he not, with the deck stacked against he and his wing-mates in the way that it was? Dying was a very real possibility. He knew full well how disadvantaged he'd be when he signed up to be an Autobot.

Silence settled, leaving Nathan alone with the clouds for a few minutes, until he spoke again, by way of an apology.

"Im sorry. it's not easy, but you and your planet are worth fighting for."

[Nathan Walker]

“Well I suppose if you could fly rings around a ground transport, it makes sense to not use it.”

Crescent’s response caught Nathan off guard somewhat, much to his own surprise. It was an answer that he himself might have given if someone had asked him a question, but to hear it from what some might consider a superior lifeform...it took him a few moments to fully process it. Once he caught hold of himself again he spoke, his voice somewhat quiet.

“No...don’t be sorry. In fact, it should be me that is apologizing.”

He paused, then hurried to continue when he realized that such statement might be confusing.

“It’s just...I know humanity hasn’t exactly welcomed you with open arms since you all arrived here. You’ve been secreted away by my government and viewed with suspicion. You’ve been attacked by members of my race that see you all as nothing more than glorified technology that can be exploited in their pursuit of power.”

His hand subconsciously curled into a fist as he thought about MECH. The bastards.

“What I’m trying to say is...we haven’t exactly been good hosts.”