Ep. 1.5 - Digging Out - Closed

[Deleted]

[[Set somewhere in 1.5, probably before the Solus folks arrive. So, put it immediately before Strange New World?]]


Jazz stared at the monitors. The base layout rotated before him in three dimensions compressed to two. He'd mapped it all himself, what he could reach of it, and bribed Rattrap and Steeljaw to map the rest. Every corridor, every room, every ventilation shaft.

Primus, the ventilation shafts. But that was a problem for another day.

Today, Jazz was concerned about things on a much larger scale.

Security, contrary to what some security chiefs would tell you, was not just about keeping certain things in and certain things out. Life would be easy if everything was stationary, but that was often not how things worked. Mecha, both your allies and your enemies, moved around, and securing THEM meant taking that movement under a variety of circumstances into account. Something that the layout of this human base did not do. Especially not for very large mecha who had only two very stationary exits that were right next to each other.

Jazz was not, technically, a security mech, but he knew what HE would do if he were to attack this base, and that vulnerability irked him.

Jazz hit up the comm lines. ::Heya, League, Gasket. Could you two come to the Control Room? Got some ideas I want to run past you.::

[league]

Fresh from his vacation, League had only been back a few days and was noticeably less moody after a nice dunk in the ocean. The mech was in rather high spirits, feeling as if he had been in stasis for a year, recharging himself. He even had time to experiment with his energon still, something he was in the middle of taking apart and cleaning when his com rang out with a new batch of orders. Putting down a large wrench, League sighed before giving the broken down still a soft pat "I'll get to you later and when I do the last batch will be like ethanol compared to the future ones." he muttered before pulling himself up from the floor of his room.

With a short stretch of his limbs, the sub stretched his cramped joints, working a few minor kinks that developed from sitting in the floor for so long. League then slipped out of his room and made his slow march through the halls. His heavy foot-steps caused loud clangs on the metal floor as he traveled, taking him a bit longer then a bot of average frame design or weight. However he did finally reach the control room and took five long legged steps over to the smug looking bot waiting for him. Cross his arms the miner shot as glance down with his blue optics, waiting for either Jazz to start explaining or Gasket to join them, whichever came first.

[Deleted]

Efficiency increases by some xx% if this series of stocks are arranged to the front.

Groaning, the old mech's hydraulics slowly tensed as they lifted a massive cargo container from their place on the floor and placed it over his shoulder, the metal on metal making an awful noise as his heavy pedes shifted to turn toward the back wall. Old Gasket had taken it upon himself to rearrange many of the unused stockrooms that the humans had left full of abandoned nick-nacks, if nothing else, to keep himself busy.

Despite his calculations of efficiency, he had no idea if the humans kept decent records of everything he had been moving so the action was more an exercise in procrastination than anything. As he reached the back wall his off-servo moved up to balance the massive container as he lowered it from his shoulder, lowering it to the ground with his creaking leg assemblies, faux smoke seeping from his joints from the strain. Venting he paused after the container hit the floor, his coms had come alive.

::Heya, League, Gasket. Could you two come to the Control Room? Got some ideas I want to run past you.::

::Copy/roger/incoming::

Turning the old mech's pedes hit the concrete as his frame moved smoothly yet slowly from the stock room. As he turned into the hallway, stepping past several smaller mechs, Gasket's servos flexed open and closed, trying to work out some ghost glitch that had taken up residence in his circuits.

Stepping into the monitoring room the old mech nodded at Jazz, then at League. While he did not know what was going on, the tone by which Jazz spoke suggested it was something mundane, benign.

"How can I... we help you, Jazz?"

[Deleted]

"Whelp...need some advice from one of our construction--" a nod to Gasket "--and mining--" a nod to League "--experts."

He waved a hand at the monitors, with their schematics of the base layout. "Humans built for humans, not for us, and we've done the best we could with the layout here. Some things, though, we're gonna have to remodel in ourselves. Now that we're somewhat secure and bolted in here, I'm starting to think about a few other things...like how to get back out again. Primus willing we'll never have to worry about it, but I've never liked relying on godly intervention, ya know?" Nor thought it was particularly trustworthy.

Jazz was fairly sure that it was not a matter of if the 'Cons would find them...but when.

Jazz looked up at the two mechs. "Say we get made. Say the Nemesis is hovering outside and the 'Cons come pouring down and through that tunnel." Jazz pointed behind them at the tunnel in question. "We need an escape route. Something that is not THAT or the groundbridge, because those're gonna be the first to go. We also need something big enough that all the mecha we got here can fit through it, including you two. So! Brainstorming time."

Jazz tapped a few buttons and the top floors of the base schematics peeled off, leaving the basements and sub-basements. "If they're likely to come at us from above, my thought is to let 'em, but give us an escape tunnel. Something the fliers and the grounders can use, something you, Gasket, could use in your alt, either to pull wounded or to haul out any mecha with no other way to haul aft fast." Another few taps, and the schematics zoomed in on what Jazz had seen as a few likely starting points, including the humans' old railway access from (as far as Jazz could tell), when they'd been bringing missiles in by railcar.

Jazz gestured expansively in a "take a look" manner. "M'not the expert, though, so wanted to ask you two your thoughts on the matter. Think it would work?"

[league]

The heavy sub stayed silent through Jazz's little presentation, remaining oddly mellow as he studied the blueprints of their base. The mech missed digging and mining, he tried to get as much in as he could, but this was a chance to really put his skills to use. He scanned the schematics at least ten times over before giving a grunt "Primus Jazz..." League growled before rubbing his chin in annoyance. "Just mark and X on the fragging map and I'll dig. This does not need to be..." pausing in mid gripe the cool blue optics of League widened for a moment as something clicked inside his head.

He began to look at the outline with his paranoia, asking himself what he would do if he was mining alone, what safeties would he employ if he suspected that he was being hunted.

"Bolt-holes..." He muttered as he reached out and began to interface with the blueprint, marking several lines sprouting from the base and then using an overlaying map of the next few square miles to plot out a few escape routs. One of the most promising went to a local scrap yard, which was fairly easy for a bot of any size to hide in, not to mention a handy railroad that went through the center. "Get a few of these, brace the walls good, far better then we normally do. Make the support-struts near the entrances weak and a small bomb should plug the holes." Pausing for a moment he added "On a timer, so the stupid fragger doesn't get stuck in base and used as target practice." he then drew a few more lines out, connecting them to the middle of nowhere or near a busy intersection, making sure that his paranoid mind covered as many angles as possible.

"I've laid track a few times in my day, if you can get the stuff I can set it up to make sure that tubby-rails here has more than one option with everything hits the fan...as the humans say." With that league turned an annoyed optic to Gasket, waiting to see if the larger mech agreed with League's rabbit-hole idea, had further input or flat out changed everything all together.

[Deleted]

Gasket, too, remained silent as Jazz outlined his idea to himself and League. While he was unsure as to how he should feel at the moment, he merely brushed it off and focused on the blueprints that read on the display. The explanation was as straight-forward they came, plan for the eventuality that something happens to their current home.

As Jazz completed his comment, the prints splayed out for him to observe, the old construction and labor mech could not help but notice several severe constructional choices that none in his corps would have made as well as other more minor details. Sadly, it took him a moment to realize he was scrutinizing something already built and he shifted his focus again.

By this time, however, League had begun to weigh in. Despite a few small pejorative terms, which Gasket ignored, he found himself agreeing with the League's ideas. He would need a larger exit than the flyers or even the medium sized bots and such a back door approach would definitely be effective. When League turned an optic to him, he simply nodded in approval as his own optics continued to scrutinize the map; such an operation was not as easy as they made it sound.

While he had no doubt that they could assemble such an exit before anything happened, it was the step beyond that concerned him. For a moment more he kept silent, scrutinizing every nook of the sub-basement but mostly focusing on the rails and a few smaller side-tunnels.

"Such an option seems... sufficient. Given a passage wide enough and the right... rolling stock I could carry as many as we needed. However, if these specs are right, the tunnel may need to be widened... perhaps even reopened if neglect has caused degradation."

A glance at League passed on his meaning. Pausing he shifted the map to a road-map, hoping to get a good idea as to where the roadies could go if they wanted to split with him in their flight.

"The rails around... Jasper, was it? There is little traffic. The track must be lain for quite some distance to meet the spur and we would need to acquire a switch to prevent... unwanted visitors. Or I could fabricate one. Rolling stock is... another matter."

Stopping to scratch his well worn chin, he returned to the sub-basement level where he saw the remainder of what looked to be the entry track. He would need to look around...

"That gets me out, carrying whomever... I can. However, every eventuality must be taken into account. Even replacing the... rail lines would only offer a third option which I and a few passengers could take. League, if you were to... expand these side tunnels to the outside and conceal them, it would offer another option should the entrance be... blocked".

Deciding his suggestion would likely be considered he paused one last time.

"On to the matter of rolling stock. Jazz... do you have cameras in the sub-basement? Perhaps the... original designers left missile transport wagons."

[Deleted]

Jazz listened as League and Gasket made their suggestions, his smile widening as they took to the task. He'd been able to see what NEEDED to be done from a tactical viewpoint, of course, but he didn't have the practical know-how to tell miners their business.

Jazz nodded to Gasket and reached out to flip through the internal cameras on the console. He grinned over at League. "That is EXACTLY the type of thing I was thinking. This is a last-ditch thing. We run, we're not looking to come back, and tearing the place down around the 'Cons' helms is a bonus. Escape options are good. Nasty surprises for anybody trying to follow are even better. Ah, here...."

Jazz found the camera he was looking for. It was one of the larger sub-basements, now crammed with stuff. "When we were remodeling, moved any heavy equipment the humans might want back into here, specifically because it did have all their transport sledges in it, and easier to move stuff there than to move them out. Probably blocked them in, but right...." he pointed to the image "....eh, back there somewhere is what I think you're looking for, Gasket."