Ep. 1.0 [AR] - Fire Hazard - Open

[Deleted]

Being trapped inside a flaming pile of wreckage was not Halocene's thing, and yet there she was, upside-down and pinned underneath a fuel cell that was easily her size. Civilian ships had slag-all for safety equipment, and she was finding this out now, because there was absolutely no flame retardant system on the piece of scrap.

That, or she'd somehow managed to break it over the half-mile stretch of now destroyed earth where the ship had skidded to its resting spot. Still, it should have been functional. Slaggin' poor workmanship, that.

If she could just get her damn knee-plate up under it... With a grunt, the big femme heaved the cell off of her with one momentous shove, and promptly fell out of her seat, which had become a death trap. Unaffected, she shoved herself to her feet and hissed as the cell clipped her left shoulder as it clattered to the floor –- which was really the ceiling, since the ship was currently laying on its top --, at her pedes, that much closer to the heat of the fire that had started in the cockpit. Orange-white flames reflected off the femme's visor as she watched the whipping tendrils reach closer to the extremely flammable fuel container.

Yeah, it was time to exit the spacecraft.

The only problem with that was that the ship was absolutely crushed from its own weight resting on structures that had not been designed to bear it.

Shoving her way bodily to the back of the small craft, Halocene wasted no time in deploying her stinger blades, burying one set in the hull of the ship and forcing them downward in spite of the shrieking metal. She was anything if not resourceful.

Feeling the insistent press of death waiting just over her shoulder, the frontliner let out a bellow of frustration when the blades hit a cross-strut and came to a halt.

“Come on, you slagger.” She growled under her breath to the plating of the hull as she hurriedly began cutting again, pushing her blades ruthlessly through the squealing metal. Behind her, the fuel cell began hissing as it started to expand with the heat of the fire now dangerously close to engulfing it. Oh, not good.

“Come on, come on, come ON!” Halocene barked as she rammed the now cut hull with one shoulder, the crushed metal thundering as she repeatedly slammed into it with her full weight. She wasn't going to offline cooked to death in a tin can, Primus-slaggit! It was with that thought that the metal gave way with a deafening scream, and the frontliner spilled out onto the ground in a heap of armor and charred hull. There was no time to ponder the peculiarities her escape, however, and the femme launched herself to her feet, pushing her massive frame into a joint-jarring run.

Smart as it had been for her to can-open her way out of the ship, she neglected to disconnect her audios while she beat aft in the nearest direction, and the resulting blast as the cell exploded, followed very shortly by the actual fuel tanks, not only made her optics snow out, but had her audios blank with static.

Still feeling the heat of the flames, the femme sat up from where she'd been knocked in the red dirt, and let out a puff of overheated air, spark racing fit to fall out of its casing.

The plus side, she was slaggin' alive, albeit slightly well-cooked. The down side, there was now a huge fire eating up all the native vegetation around her. Firing up her internal frequencies, she prepped the coordinates of her area before haphazardly flinging out a radius ping and praying to Primus that her Autobot frequencies were up to date. Whoever hadn't heard the explosion would know exactly where she was shortly, even if it was a long shot:

I need a fire containment crew to these coordinates ASAP, repeat, fire crew to these coordinates, haul aft.

At least she hadn't landed near a populated area?

[Deleted]

He was on security duty when the call came through.

A quick confirmation at the monitors tallied up the situation; he stared in dismay at the plotted chart of the ship's decent from the Earth's orbit, the glide trajectory it traced through reentry. To the humans who happened to witness the spectacle it would be nothing but a brilliant streak across the sky, a meteor flickering and vanishing within the space of a few seconds.

To him it was going to be a lot of charred plating and a long incident report.

Fire containment.

Fortress Maximus checked that his rifle was clipped to the small of his back as he wearily activated the ground bridge controls.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd stomped out fiery wreckage. This month.

----

Green light erupted into life not far from Halocene's position.

A ground bridge spiralled open, crackling with energy. An engine roared; an instant later a big tank in dull blue and grey urban camouflage barrelled out of it, its treads spinning up clouds of dust as soon as they touched the desert floor. When it spotted the burning shuttle the tank quickly slammed to a halt, dust crashing over its flanks as it lurched in place.

Black smoke boiled into the sky. As he sat in low idle Maximus gave an internal whistle at the sight of the damage.

The shuttle was a mess. No salvage team was going to recover equipment from this one. It looked as if the fuel tanks had already exploded; what little was left of the hull was an inferno, a gutted and burning husk. It sat buried in a mound of ploughed up earth. Even the scrub brush around it was ablaze.

It's pilot sat nearby: a big femme in the soot-blackened armour of a frontliner. Maximus eyed her warily and took a moment to appreciate the fact that she had apparently carved an exit straight out the side of the hull before the shuttle had exploded. Those hulls were heavily shielded to withstand the intense pressure of atmospheric reentry. Clawing through that kind of plating was an impressive feat.

She looked intact. The roar of the fire made speaking aloud impractical, so he opened up his internal commline instead.

"Maintain your position there," he said over it. "You should be clear. Stand-by for a secondary explosion."

No way to stomp out burning fuel. Fortunately he had developed a straightforward technique for this kind of fire containment.

Maximus lit up his targeting computers. His turret swivelled as he pointed his smoothbore gun at the shuttle, then lowered it. He took careful aim.

The firing blast rocked him back on his treads. An instant later the round struck the ground beneath the shuttle and exploded. Dirt and rock fountained upwards and the shuttle was swallowed by a massive cloud of dust. The shockwave hit him and he weathered it calmly, even as it hailed debris against his armour.

Within a minute the dust began to drift away. When it had cleared to a tawny haze Maximus saw that most of the fire was out. The round had blasted a crater beneath the shuttle, which had immediately collapsed into the hole. Dirt and rock had cascaded on top of it, smothering the fire. Well, most of the fire. A few bushes still burned feebly nearby. By 'nearby' he meant within a mile radius or so.

Satisfied, Maximus opened his comm again.

"Zoom-Zoom," he growled. "I know you're on-base. Report to my position for... secondary fire containment."

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom had been buried deep within the pipework in the lower levels of the base when the call came in. There was a drip, a drip that had been driving Red Alert half-way up the walls and the mech had assigned the minibot to finding and fixing it for the last few days. Truthfully, this was a job better suited for a mech Electrocap's size or of Arcee's build but Red Alert had been very unimpressed with Zoom-Zoom's record so far and decided that the minibot's life needed to be filled with odd job after odd job.

So, he'd flattened himself against the wall and had his helm shoved between the narrow interlacing pipework searching for this damnned leak in a small alcove just when his comm crackled. Zoom-Zoom was not prepared to hear Fortress Maximus's voice demand for him and his helm jerked upwards, bashing against the ceiling of the alcove. Muttering curses, Zoom-Zoom carefully extracted himself from the pipework before straightening up and answering the comm.

"Zoom-Zoom," Fortress Maximus growled. "I know you're on-base. Report to my position for... secondary fire containment."

The minibot had to choke down his immediate desire to snark back to Sir Stomp-A-Lot. It didn't take much, he only had to recall the wild chase through the jungle when he'd crashed landed on Earth. "On my way, sir," he managed in a barely civil tone.

Zoom-Zoom pinged Red Alert a status update, that he was travelling off-base in response to Fortress Maximus's request and then pinged Ratchet to get a groundbridge ready. Both Autobots responded back with acknowledgement. Zoom-Zoom did not head immediately to the control room, first he quickly diverted his path to the store-room. There was, from what he could recall when he went over the base inventory (yet another task Red had assigned him), a portable fire fighting trailer which the minibot should probably take with him as he didn't have much in the way of fire containment. He stood over the trailer for only an astrosecond, during that time, he pondered how exactly he was going to rig it up to his alt-mode as it was just a little too big and irregularly shaped for him to carry it by himself then he decided it did not matter.

The minibot raised the jockey wheel, disengaged the handbrake on the trailer and then simply lifted the tow bar and dragged the trailer behind him instead. It got him a very curious look from Ratchet when he finally made his way up to him but the medic thankfully didn't say a word as he prepared the groundbridge. As soon as it was open, Zoom-Zoom was marching down it at a hurried pace. He did not like groundbridges and wanted to keep his stay in them as short as possible.

He stepped out of the groundbridge and his attention was immediately grabbed by the sight of the still smoking shuttle. Zoom-Zoom admired the crash, explosions and fire were always great when he wasn't the one involved in them and this looked pretty damn amazing. Vaguely, Zoom-Zoom noted Fortress Maximus's location and that that the pilot had apparently survived and was safe but he really was fixated on the smoking wreckage.

"Wow," he whistled in appreciation. "I give that ten out of ten. This is a fragging masterpiece. Even better than the job I did crashing on this hell hole. Sweet."

Reluctantly, Zoom-Zoom glanced over to Sir Stomp-A-Lot. "Zoom-Zoom reporting to duty, sir," he sullenly added in afterthought.

The minibot's gazed then transferred their survivor, one large front-liner. Not exactly the sort of mecha Zoom-Zoom would have pegged as a pilot. "I suppose that this is the point where we start shooting the newbie," he remarked acidly.

[Deleted]

Halocene rolled herself so she could watch the initial blast flame cycle back down again; there were more things on fire then had been previously, but at least this wasn't a heavily-forested region. She'd observed a few of those on entry, between the wild spirals of the ship.

In truth, she had definitely pushed the civvie craft past its limits as far as space travel, so it was really no surprise that the thrust vectors had quit. Still, it was disturbingly hard to see the last token of good-will from her remaining teammates go to slag because of her.

Scrap-heap had almost gotten her offlined, anyway.

Propping her forearms on her knee-plates, the femme adopted an entirely too casual sitting position in the dust, deciding she would stand up and do something about the fire whens he could hear again; her gyroscope was slagged without audio input, and they would be back to normal soon. Primus, she had really gotten out of this one by the paint layer, hadn't she? Scraping out of tough situations was no stranger to Halocene, nor frontliners in general, but being roasted alive – a ground bridge opened up to her right, and she was driven to her pedes by the press of wariness. It wasn't wise to bring arms against what she didn't know to be a threat, so she settled for preparedness.

However, what came out of the bridge was not what she expected.

“Maintain your position there, you should be clear. Stand by for secondary explosion.”

Halocene gave a gesture of casual salute as an affirmative that she had heard, and stood passively. Artillery fire had never bothered her audios, and they were slowly coming back online – though input was muffled considerably –, but she felt the recoil in her pedes. Lifting an arm to shield herself from any falling debris, the defunct frontliner gave a low whirr of appreciation as the dust cloud drifted off in the direction of the smoke; the fire on the ship was completely extinguished, save a few outlying spots that would be easily taken care of by some leg work.

“Very nice, you must do this often.” She pinged to the tank, and drifted into a sort of sheepish frown.

“Uh...right, thanks for putting out my raging inferno.” How in the pit was she going to explain how the ship had gotten upside-down? She supposed she'd have to divulge everything for the report, so she might as well save herself the embarrassment for later.

The bridge opened again, and this time a mini-bot stepped through with a fire trailer in tow. Despite herself, the femme ignored his sarcastic jab with a roll of her optics behind her visor. The last time she'd dealt with a mini, it had been a Decepticon grunt, and she'd thrown him into – well, more like through -- the main support pillar of some defunct alien structure on a planet she couldn't even remember the name of. That had been before she'd been sentenced to a life of “no fighting, ever”.

Turning a broad shoulder to the two mechs, Halocene looked out and down the obvious trench she had carved into the earth with some trepidation. There were parts, small and large alike, scattered along it from the ship, but she doubted anything was useable, and –

"I suppose this is the point where we start shooting the newbie,"

The femme turned abruptly to pin the mini-bot with a stare, armor flaring slightly.

“Yeah, that blast fried my audios for a bit, would you mind runnin' that by me again, short stuff?” She inquired in a low tone, a quiet rumble of threat bubbling from her. If these two wanted to have a slug fest now that the immediate danger of a fire was past, she'd gladly oblige. The intelligent side of her processor told her that it was a very bad idea to engage in any sort of combat, knowing what would happen to her, but the side of it that wanted a fight was bellowing righteously.

Turning optics to the other mech – he would be an issue in a fight, the mini-bot, not so much –, she tensed. They were obviously Autobots, if the red sigil emblazoned on the mini's frame was any indication, and her own emblem was clearly displayed on one hulking shoulder plate, so why the slaggin' hostility from the half pint? Codes verification was out of the question until she could ensure her firewalls wouldn't be at risk, so it was trust and be trusted at this point.

And comments about open firing on her were not very conducive to trust.

[Deleted]

For a moment the tank sat idling. Smoke and dust drifted over it, smudging its paint. Its main gun remained pointed at the wreckage, as if daring the fire to kindle again.

The tank transformed.

The robot that rose up to stand in a loose parade stance was a big one, even taller than Halocene, lean and armoured like a fellow frontliner. The dirty tank treads on his back stood above his shoulders; mag-clipped between them was a heavy photon rifle. His expression was stony as he rounded on Zoom-Zoom, his red optics already narrowed in ire.

"We only shoot newbies who arrive in Decepticon shuttles," he growled. "And are unable to provide their identification codes when prompted. And then bolt when you press the issue."

He turned back to Halocene.

"I'm Fortress Maximus, Autobot security," he said. "This... is Zoom-Zoom. Spec ops. We picked up your shuttle as it was inbound, then received your call shortly after. Looks like you safely extracted yourself from the crash site though. Glad we could at least make it in time put out the fire."

His gaze fell to the sigil on her shoulder. Maximus frowned, but he when he spoke again his voice was measured and deep.

"If you're in need of medical attention we can provide it back on the base. In the meantime I'm going to need to ask you to provide your Autobot ID codes before a bridge can be opened."

His own red sigil sat squarely in the middle of his chest, small and crisp.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom had watched in interest as the frontliner got herself together in a defensive stance. His helm had swivelled in consideration between Fort Max and the newcomer as he tried to figure out who would win in a fight between them. He let go of the fire-trailer just in case he suddenly needed to haul aft out of there.

He hadn't been thinking when he uttered the comment but now he was curious to see the outcome if it did break down in a fight. He was a Spec Bot after all, learning the combat capabilities of every mech he served with was just one of the things they did without a second thought. You never know when you had to suddenly commandeer a unit or take down a comrade for a mission. Not that Zoom-Zoom had done either but still. It was basic training and instinct now to seize any opportunity to study another mecha's fighting style.

So it was with something akin to disappointment to have Fortress Maximus take control of the situation. No epic battle between two massive frontliners with the minibot hidden away somewhere in the background? With the crashed shuttle and the fragging long trench it had dug in the ground to serve as the dramatic backdrop?

Sheesh, some mechs don't have any imagination at all.

Zoom-Zoom didn't protest Fort Max's first two rebuttals but the third- "You were going to blow my head off," he complained. Never mind that the minibot had been planning to run anyway regardless of Fortress Maximus' actions. He would protest his innocence that those particular set of actions were justified till the end of time.

In boredom, though not relaxing his guard just yet, he dug his right pede into the ground and shovelled a bit of dirt around. He wasn't exactly certain why Sir Stomp-A-Lot had dragged him along -the big mech certainly had the situation in hand-but supposed that this was all just part of his punishment duty. Until the new frontliner had her codes authorised, the minibot wasn't going to make a move towards those last few fires lest the big femme turn out to be a Decepticon in disguise.

They were now settling into boring stuff, official procedures and protocols. Not that they couldn't be interesting, Zoom-Zoom's own arrival had proved so. If the new Bot's ID codes didn't check out, then they could have a different sort of firefight on their servos. So whilst Zoom-Zoom was certainly acting distracted through the proceedings, he was paying close attention to the frontliner.

But-still, he couldn't resist antagonising her. "Seriously though, you have to teach me how to crash like that. When I grow up, I want to pilot just like you."

The minibot could definitely fly a ship, one had to if their line of work involved making their own entrances and exits into an enemy base. Zoom-Zoom's own crash had been the result of his shuttle finally falling apart on him after taking a chunk of debris somewhere around Jupiter, not due to pilot error. They'd tracked the flight down of the crashing shuttle and this however had taken some serious skill.


Or rather, not skill.

[Deleted]

Oh, biggun'.

The tank stood up, and then up some more, until he was actually looking down at Halocene. Fortress Maximus wasn't terribly taller than the femme, but the tank treads rising like towers over his shoulders added to the intimidation and brawn effect. Still, even though she had spent the majority of her time around mecha who could look her in the optic while they spoke to her, she always appreciated meeting them.

As the scene unfolded, Halocene stood quietly by; an amused expression gradually replaced the tension that had set her jaw as she watched the tankformer berate the mini-bot. Oh, there was definitely a story there. She'd have to pry it out of one of them later, and something told her it wasn't going to be Fortress Maximus.

Helm tilted slightly, the femme nodded at the provided names. They fit their respective owners; one, the stoic commander-type, and the other whose sass component was maxed out.

“I'm grateful for the assistance. Y'all probably could have used the ship if I hadn't fragged it up so badly. One klik, and I'll ping you a document with codes.” The frontliner intoned with unusual quietness, grimacing. Her CPU was running at high performance just then, which was bad for small internal tasks like this. With practiced ease, she cut the power to her visor -- to compensate – before fishing out the ever-important codes, dropping them into a file she could seal off on all ends, and sending a ping to Fortress Maximus. Easy. Right?

Visor powering into brightness again, the femme turned her gaze to the smart-mouthed mini. She liked his humor.

“You know, I'm going to be running a course called How to Land Safely Without Functioning Thrust Vectors 101, you should come. ” Halocene threw at Zoom-Zoom with deceptive dryness before turning and ambling over to examine the ship. The codes in the file she had sent were good, that much she was certain of, so as far as she was concerned, she had nothing to fear from the big mech, and her casualness returned with a vengeance.

The hull was still hot to the touch, but she managed to use it to lower her frame into a one-kneed crouch with minimal joint squealing, and peer into the space where the view windows had once preceded the cockpit. The fuel cell had been absolutely obliterated, there was no trace of it, and everything that was still attached was in ruins. Heat billowed out at her from the interior, though she could say that it was a marked improvement from the armor-roasting temperature when she had cut her way out of the hull.

“S'a damn shame.” She mumbled, mouth pressed into a grim line. Everything valuable to her – and there was not much – was safely stored in her subspace, but the ship had been a grand gesture of accord from her now civilian cohort.

'Go on and find your front lines, you big idiot.' It still rang inside her helm.

Well, at least she had done one thing right.

“So!” She grunted cheerily as she got to her feet, evacuating excess heat from her vents, “What do I have to do to get an altmode around here?”

Le Fin.