Ep1.5 - China - 'Marco!' - Closed

[Deleted]

<<OOC: Set before 'Cause and Consequence'>>

The port of Ningbo-Zhoushan was the second largest port in the world, stacked high and wide with shipping containers of multiple colours. From the air, Fairwinds thought it looked like a Cybertron suburbia made out of Lego, and she particularly enjoyed the steady movements of the cranes, trucks and the fact that the humans were too small to see. She was not cruising to appreciate the view.

Squawking the Nemesis's frequency and leaving a deliberately calculated ion trail, Fairwinds traversed the length of the port in a slow glide. It was dark and peaceful, and she could fly lower than usual in the smog to watch the night crews continue with loading freight.

More than that, it was good to get away from the Nemesis doing something useful. She wasn't built for making physical repairs on the scale that the warship required, and Soundwave was being possessive over the ship's databanks, only farming out what he couldn't handle himself to his own cassettes. As an able flier, she'd volunteered to join the Seekers and Eradicons in taking a long flight to mask the ship's signal. Her silhouette was far from impressive, but she didn't need to be any more than 0.07 percent of the ship's size to make phoney signals.

[Deleted]

Jazz pondered the incoming data on the ion trail they'd just locked onto. China. Ningbo-Zhoushan. Busy port, city of over 7 million people, if Wikipedia was right.

Bulkhead echoed Jazz's thoughts as he squinted up at the monitors. "Kinda...populated place for the Nemesis to be, isn't it? Decoy?"

"Most likely," Jazz said, venting a sigh and tapping a foot. "I'm beginnin' to get the feeling our luck's run out, y'know?"

"Yeah. Guess it was too much to ask. S' a shame. I was lookin' forward to bustin' more helms." Bulkhead turned to look at Jazz. "Kinda feel bad you haven't had a chance at some of the action."

Jazz shrugged and grinned. "Wagered everything on the big prize. That's the way it goes: sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."

He looked up at the streak of ion trail skating over Ningbo. He wondered what the not!Nemesis was doing, that close to a population center. Was it on purpose? Carelessness? Some kind of ploy?

::Hey, Blaster, you got any eyes in the sky over China?::

::That new trail? Lemme check....::

Jazz leaned against the console, smiling. He swore that he could hear the sound of international laws and satellite firewalls being broken as he stood there.

A minute or two later, Blaster came back with the glyph equivalent of a shrug. ::I can see something, so it's not shielded. It's small, whatever it is. Definitely smaller than a seeker.::

::Laserbeak?:: Bulkhead suggested.

::Maybe,:: Blaster replied. ::It is about drone-sized.::

Jazz knew of another flight-capable 'Con on Earth that was about drone-sized, too, but the fewer folks to know about Rhinox's new gardening buddy, the better.

::Be good to check it out. Taking out Laserbeak's a real blow to Soundwave's reconnaissance abilities,:: Jazz said.

Jazz grinned. "Looks like I get to go on a field trip after all. Fire up the bridge, big guy. Jazz is on the case."


<<Feel free to have Windy be shot next round. Jazz'll bridge in somewhere along her immediate flight path, probably ID her before shooting her down.

Also let me know if you don't like my use of Blaster's satellite hacking skillz to get info about her. I don't know if that's a realistic thing for him to do or not (or a realistic thing for the 'Bots to be able to see, given that they ARE looking for the Nemesis...maybe that satellite is just pointed in just the right direction, and they can't do that for any ion trail they want?), but I wanted some way for Jazz to know that he didn't need to send a whole team to deal with a Seeker.... ;P>>

[Deleted]

Having determined that this area of the port was empty enough for it, Fairwinds landed on a crane boom high above the asphalt and medley of shipping containers. There was no ship alongside, and the hourly security patrol had just pass through. Her comm. chirped just as she was powering down her thrusters and settling into the lattice.

::Nemesis to Fairwinds. Be advised that you're thirty-four miles off your flight plan.::

::Hey Mustang!:: Settling down onto her undercarriage, Fairwinds began a sensor sweep of the mystery cargo below whilst she chattered to the Eradicon. Mustang was a regular gummie customer, and had never missed a movie night whatever the screening. ::How's the new hip socket? Your leg fallen off again, yet?"

Cosmetics. Farming machinery. BMX bikes. A tonne of Doritos. Dehydrated bovine effusions. Ooh! DVDs!

There was silence where there would have been a chuckle had Mustang not been on the bridge of the Nemesis. It was one thing that Soundwave should hear this conversation via his habitual monitoring of all ingoing and outgoing communications with the warship, but entirely another for the indulgence of the cassette to take place in his direct presence.

:No, it's still hanging in there. Haven't transformed with it yet, though.:: The Eradicon brought up all data on Fairwind's current position, visor dimming with a frown at the reported altitude. Her voice was hesitant and much, much quieter. ::Uh, Windy? What're you doing down there? Bearing in mind that Commander Starscream will have my mesh over yours if he finds out you've deviated from his op.::

Oh my pogo there's Blue Ray too... I love scanning freight. Alright then, my tiny little PS3 with integrated Blue Ray: where are you? Perfume. Clothes. More clothes. Jewelry...

::Chill your plugs, Sally - there's a load of cargo here that no one's watching, and I just found a whole container filled with palladium and rhodium. Y'know, those precious metals that we like to use and recently lost a bunch of?::

Mustang's fingers fluttered on the console, updating the cassette's status and CC.ing the amendments to Starscream. ::Okay, I've put you down as gathering resources as a supplement to running your ion trail. We haven't got the energon to move a shipping container, though.::

::Why I'm gonna put a tracker on the container so we can get it later, dig? It's down for export and the ship'll be at sea for weeks.:: Fairwinds twisted her helm around to tug one of the plates near the base of her rear stabiliser out, activating it with a flick of her tongue whilst it was in her beak. A second plate slotted in to fill the gap left by the microtransmitter. ::I'll mark this, have a quick snoop for anything else we can use:: - and stuff my subspace with all the neat things - ::and I'll be back on track in less than ten kliks. 'kay?.

::Sounds good. I'll let you know if something comes up. Nemesis out.::

Fairwinds had just opened her wings to glide down cold onto the container below when a flash of plasma slammed into the trailing plates. Caught off-balance on a narrow boom, the Decepticon pirouetted with a shriek and fell clean off. Momentum combined with weight and the comparatively higher density of Cybertronium alloys to the native metals meant that Fairwinds crashed straight through the container and into a shiny-plastic hell of handbags and coats.

"Owwww! Fragging Autospawn of a sewage plant!"

Lying in a sprawl of outrage, Fairwinds waited for the line of fire running clean along her wing into the auxiliaries to ease off enough to think. There was too much interference from the surrounding containers to get a clear fix on who had hit her and where it was. She took a moment to regurgitate the tracker she'd inhaled in surprise, then wriggled vigorously to sink into the plastic and bury herself in counterfeit goods. When her backplates hit the bottom of the container, she routed extra power to autorepair and waited to see how this played out.

[Deleted]

Oh, that was a nice shot, if Jazz did say so himself (and he did). Shooting something as small as Fairwinds with anything like anatomical precision was not easy, and Jazz had had to pull out a fairly small pistol to even attempt it without risking killing the cassette.

Laserbeak he would have nailed. Hopefully so he could bring the processor back to Blaster like a happy puppy. Fairwinds, though, Jazz didn't know enough about. She might know something useful, might not, and without knowing who her anonymous "Master" was, Jazz didn't want to try anything as drastic as capturing her.

Singing her tailfeathers, though, he thought, was par for the course.

Would have been better if she'd not fallen INTO one of the shipping containers, though.

Jazz sighed and leapt, turbo-cat silent, down from his sniper's perch. Couldn't ask for everything.

He closed in on the shipping container through the dockside maze, keeping his distance and an optic on both the now-perforated top and the probably-oh-so-laser-torchable sides. He set his comm for a low-power common frequency. ::Now, now, what've we got here? Someone poking around in things that don't belong to them? Stealing is wrong, y'know.::

His glyphs made it clear that he very well knew how hypocritical that statement was but was gonna be a cocky smartaft anyway.

[Deleted]

Fairwinds gave a long, suitably dramatic sigh over the open band.

::You got me: I was going to take these three hundred Diar purses back to Lord Megatron so that we could line them with evil and turn the knock-off fashionistas to the dark side. But you being here has totally reformed me and now I want to give cupcakes to legless squishy children without creators.::

With a rustle of plastic, the cassette tipped her helm towards the rough direction the shot had come from and prepared her integrated blaster. There was no sound from outside, the Autobot either lingering back or moving with perfect stealth. She was betting on the latter.

Muting her running sounds as much as possible with internal dampeners, Fairwinds lay perfectly still at the bottom of the crate. Talking over the open channel wouldn't give any indication to their position like a vocaliser would. She could hear the waves against the concrete edges of the dock, the lazy flap and slop of tyre cushions in the water, but not so much as a piston whine from an approaching mecha. The bot was good.

Fairwinds ran through the Autobots know to be planetside. Then the ones who could make a shot like that.

::So what're you doing out here shooting up little cassettes who were just minding their own business doing nothing? Mission to retrieve perfume and tin foil, or are you off-grid for the novelty of shooting something smaller than you, Jazz?::

[Deleted]

::I'd sooner believe that you're gearing up for a ship-wide fashion show,:: Jazz replied. ::Now THERE'S an idea. I hear that there's a flashy medic on Earth who'd love that, and really, Megatron's SO got the chest to fill out some of this year's dresses....::

Jazz's imagination was a blessing and a curse that he was determined to share with everyone, really.

He could hear, over the sounds of the sea and wind and maritime commerce going on out in the water, the rustle of plastic in the container as Windy moved around, but he couldn't hear anything like a cutting torch or an attempt to get out. It was a sound enough plan. Jazz wasn't likely to try to go in after her, after all.

Jazz nabbed a stray bolt from the ground, then scaled one of the cargo containers catty-corner and across the way from the occupied one. It gave him a nice view of the two exposed sides of the container and the top without putting him in direct line of sight.

::Flying around squawking to anyone with a receiver that you're the Nemesis isn't exactly 'minding your own business', though. Aren't you a little short to be a Decepticon warship, smallstuff?::

Jazz winged the bolt at the container's side, and it made a nice, satisfying TONG! when it hit.


<<I'm assuming that this container isn't off on its own, but is maybe in a grouping of four, so it has a long and a short side exposed and the other two sides against other containers. If you'd like some other arrangement, just let me know!>>

[Deleted]

Fairwinds had been about to reply that Shockwave's frametype would be infinitely more suitable for the 'filling out' that Jazz had in mind, but that this season was all about legs, for which there was no comparison to Starscream's willowy limbs. Then something hit the side of the container perilously close to her head. Close enough, in fact, that she shot the bolt through the metal as it arced away. Knowing far better than to stay near the blaster hole she'd just made, Fairwinds twisted away with a curse.

The noisy scrabble through plastic packaging took her to the corner of the container in less than five seconds, and she scanned through to see what was on the other side. It was definitely another container, and one with denser readings than the one she was currently in. Metal alloys, and lots of it. Hopefully it would be something she could use.

Counting down the milliseconds before Jazz would be on top of her, Fairwinds recalibrated her blaster to a cutting torch and began to make herself a door.

::Still got you out here, dipstick, where the Nemesis so clearly isn't. I think some of the guys are squawking by Euro Disney if you wanted to waste more of your time somewhere fun.

[Deleted]

Jazz's audials caught the noisy shuffle of packaging as Fairwinds moved. Of course, she moved toward the corner that was in the middle of the four of cargo containers. Jazz used her movement to cover his own near-soundless leap down to the ground, where he could pace around a bit to get a better vantage point. If he could get in contact with the container, he could get a better audial on what she was doing.

Which was, as far as he could tell, cutting through the side of the container. Probably looking to get into another container. It's what Jazz would have done.

::Aw, you're much more fun than Euro Disney. I mean, c'mon, look how much fun we're having.::

Jazz picked up a half-dozen pieces of wood from what probably used to be a pallet. He tossed them up in the air so they fell in a patter of wooden rain on top of the containers.

Just to remind her that he was there. He was less interested in capturing her than keeping her CONCERNED about him capturing her.

::Been a lot of warships running around atmo lately. Funny, that! I bet that Starscream just LOVES having to run interference, in that way that he loves EVERYTHING that Megatron tells him to do. Have he and Megatron kissed and made up yet from the latest coup attempt?::

It was a shot in the dark. But Megatron had arrived at Cleaver's with a head wound from a blaster. And Jazz had seen all the Autobot boarding party's footage. That blast hadn't come from an Autobot.

[Deleted]

Fairwinds flinched at the clattering racket atop the crate, believing for a moment that Jazz had landed there before realizing how stupid a move that would have been for the Autobot. She continued cutting a cassette-sized exit undeterred, and paid no mind to Jazz's needling question.

::Pffft. You lost out on the gossip mill when you switched faction, you dirty rotten... faction switcher.::

Fairwinds was suspicious about Starscream's possible involvement in her master's recent deviation from running on all pistons, but she hadn't done anything save for giving the Commander a really snarky look that one time. Megatron was still in Command and as strong as ever, Starscream was doing his job and whining about it to whoever he fancied as an audience, and the Decepticon war machine ground on.

Really, Starscream wheedling to usurp Megatron was just par the course. It was part of their dynamic, right along with the Seeker being periodically beaten to within an inch of his flight-capability and/or mortal coil.

The two panels of corrugated metal clanked down with a firm butt of her head. She wasted no time in ducking inside the adjoining container.

And squeeing her thrusters off when she found an orderly mountain of goods for a DIY store.

::Oh dude, I've got you so fragged right now. Seriously, you're gonna want a cygar when I'm done with you.::

I'm totally keeping some of this for Spiney. After I mangle Jazz's face with it.

The electric chainsaws all had predictably flat batteries for transit. After tearing apart the packaging, a quick zap soon had them ready to go. Fairwinds was perfectly aware that the teeth would do little more than scuff a Cybertronian's finish, but they were a noisy distraction that could throw off a mech if flung in large quantities at their head.

It would also give her opportunity to detonate the fertilzer pellets and divebomb Jazz with pitchforks.


<<OOC:... Go nuts. ^_~>>

[Deleted]

::Oh MY. I bet you say that to all the mecha.::

There was a lot of suspicious sounds coming from within that container. Well, the other container, as Fairwinds had evidently abandoned the first for something with more squeeworthy things in it. And there was squeeing. And gloating. Evidently she'd found something useful.

Of course, Fairwinds' idea of useful was, perhaps, a little different than other mechas', but she WAS a Decepticon. And she was making all kinds of noise in there: thick thumps and metallic tink!s and plastic and cardboard being shuffled about and rent asunder. This was likely going to quickly become More Trouble Than It Was Worth.

Jazz had to admit he was kind of curious, though, as to what she was concocting in there. Cautiously so, of course. He used the racket the cassette was making to cover his own climb up onto a nearby-but-not-too-nearby stack of containers. He figured that was a good vantage point and easy to leap off the opposite side of if there was an explosion or Fairwinds in an improvised mechasuit coming.

::Now, now, don't do anything rash! What would your carrier say, if you got yourself scrapped? C'mon, be smart here. Sure you don't want to surrender? I'll give you a guuuummy....::