Ep. 1 - The Mojave - Beating Boredom - (Closed)
Oct 5, 2012 23:03:44 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2012 23:03:44 GMT -5
Boy, did it feel good to be on patrol again.
Full tanks, energon flowing through his lines like liquid energy. The wind rang in his audials, sang over his wings and lofted him high up into the Mojave sky. Clouds, big towering cumulus clouds, swelled into the atmosphere like white nebula, buoyed on surging updrafts. He tore through them, dragging streamers of vapour from his wingtips when he burst out the other side. Moisture beaded his sleek white and red paint before drying swiftly in the sinking desert sunlight.
The Autobot jet sucked air through his intakes, breathed it in deep. Held it, cycled it through his frame and savoured every cool draught as it rushed over his hot-running systems. Aw yeah. Felt so good.
At ten thousand feet Air Raid soared over the desert, his F-35 alternate mode carving through the sky at an easy pace. Far below him raced his shadow, just a dot on the dusty earth. He had throttled back after reaching his cruise altitude, sacrificing speed for a chance to extend his endurance and thus lengthen his patrol. The longer he could stay out here stretching his wings, the better. It was already early evening, perhaps an hour or so before sunset. Already the sky was a deep blue, darkening into violet to the east. Soon the stars would come out, just like the stars over Cybertron did, and he would be here to greet them. He would stay out all night if he could.
He did a lazy roll, just for the hell of it.
After a long wait, after security checks and data uploads and protocol briefings, he had finally been cleared for patrol duty. Nothing big, nothing far-ranging - just over Nevada, where it was reasoned a rookie to Earth could not get into too much trouble. Mostly he had been assigned to fly over a whole lot of dust and rocks and big red-banded ridges, where he was to keep a sharp eye out for Decepticons. So far he had found scrub trees and yucca and prickly cactus things. Coyotes and jackrabbits. Long highways that wound off into the horizon- but no humans. Damn. He really wanted to see a human. Find out for himself if they were worth all the fuss the Autobots made over them.
Light duty, really. Still, Air Raid had eagerly leapt at the chance to go flying. It sure beat sitting around at the base staring at computer monitors all evening. And it was a hell of a lot better than how he had spent the last few hundred years, being nothing more than an over-glorified bodyguard for boring paper-pushers as they went about their business doing... boring things. Like... stuff. That stuff they did. Uh. Yeah.
Air Raid inwardly moaned. Oh great. It had been so dull his neural net had completely blocked it out of his memory. That was just fantastic.
But this...!
Patrolling! Yeah! Now this was proper work for a combat flier. No guard duty. No standing around watching dull people do tedious things. This was dirtying his hands with rough and tumble fighter's work. This was something to take pride in. This was...
This was...
This was pretty damn boring, actually.
Oh my god. He was bored to tears.
A little desperate now, the young Aerialbot widened his scan and fanned his radar in all directions. He peered down through a thin wispy layer of cloud with his optical sensors. Focused magnification. Saw a cactus.
Threw a proper robot temper tantrum.
Arggghhh!
Decepticons! Air Raid wordlessly shouted into the sky as he blasted to full throttle and shot vertical in a fit of pique. Rolled, then cut power and let himself drop into a raging tailslide. Flipped over backwards as he fell. Where are you! You were all over us during the Exodus! So where are you hiding now? Mother scrag bucket!
Full tanks, energon flowing through his lines like liquid energy. The wind rang in his audials, sang over his wings and lofted him high up into the Mojave sky. Clouds, big towering cumulus clouds, swelled into the atmosphere like white nebula, buoyed on surging updrafts. He tore through them, dragging streamers of vapour from his wingtips when he burst out the other side. Moisture beaded his sleek white and red paint before drying swiftly in the sinking desert sunlight.
The Autobot jet sucked air through his intakes, breathed it in deep. Held it, cycled it through his frame and savoured every cool draught as it rushed over his hot-running systems. Aw yeah. Felt so good.
At ten thousand feet Air Raid soared over the desert, his F-35 alternate mode carving through the sky at an easy pace. Far below him raced his shadow, just a dot on the dusty earth. He had throttled back after reaching his cruise altitude, sacrificing speed for a chance to extend his endurance and thus lengthen his patrol. The longer he could stay out here stretching his wings, the better. It was already early evening, perhaps an hour or so before sunset. Already the sky was a deep blue, darkening into violet to the east. Soon the stars would come out, just like the stars over Cybertron did, and he would be here to greet them. He would stay out all night if he could.
He did a lazy roll, just for the hell of it.
After a long wait, after security checks and data uploads and protocol briefings, he had finally been cleared for patrol duty. Nothing big, nothing far-ranging - just over Nevada, where it was reasoned a rookie to Earth could not get into too much trouble. Mostly he had been assigned to fly over a whole lot of dust and rocks and big red-banded ridges, where he was to keep a sharp eye out for Decepticons. So far he had found scrub trees and yucca and prickly cactus things. Coyotes and jackrabbits. Long highways that wound off into the horizon- but no humans. Damn. He really wanted to see a human. Find out for himself if they were worth all the fuss the Autobots made over them.
Light duty, really. Still, Air Raid had eagerly leapt at the chance to go flying. It sure beat sitting around at the base staring at computer monitors all evening. And it was a hell of a lot better than how he had spent the last few hundred years, being nothing more than an over-glorified bodyguard for boring paper-pushers as they went about their business doing... boring things. Like... stuff. That stuff they did. Uh. Yeah.
Air Raid inwardly moaned. Oh great. It had been so dull his neural net had completely blocked it out of his memory. That was just fantastic.
But this...!
Patrolling! Yeah! Now this was proper work for a combat flier. No guard duty. No standing around watching dull people do tedious things. This was dirtying his hands with rough and tumble fighter's work. This was something to take pride in. This was...
This was...
This was pretty damn boring, actually.
Oh my god. He was bored to tears.
A little desperate now, the young Aerialbot widened his scan and fanned his radar in all directions. He peered down through a thin wispy layer of cloud with his optical sensors. Focused magnification. Saw a cactus.
Threw a proper robot temper tantrum.
Arggghhh!
Decepticons! Air Raid wordlessly shouted into the sky as he blasted to full throttle and shot vertical in a fit of pique. Rolled, then cut power and let himself drop into a raging tailslide. Flipped over backwards as he fell. Where are you! You were all over us during the Exodus! So where are you hiding now? Mother scrag bucket!