[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Impromptu Evacuation - [Breakdown]

[Zercon]

Episode 2.5 | Week 1 | Day 1


Green and blue lighting whirled across Breakdown's vision, no ground beneath him, no solid surface to grab onto, and no sight of where he had once been even visible any longer. The bright illumination cut through everything that had been around him, and blurred into a smear of colors until the tunnel abruptly ended, and the true vastness of where he had been relocated to become painfully apparent.

Breakdown was deposited a significant distance above the water's surface, but not just any water... no... it was no stream, nor a late, he didn't even have the luck of it being an enclosed gulf... no... it was in fact one of the larger ocean masses on the planet's surface, where most directions there was only water, and more water. He was dropped high enough to make a terrifying fall towards the rolling waves below, but low enough to not be fatal as long as he were to take appropriate precautions to break the surface tension. It could still hurt though, still cause damage, and if the tiny fragments of land masses in the distance had anything to say about it, he would likely still continue to plummet and fall to the ocean floor for some time after breaking its surface.

The Pacific Sea, vast stretches of water, more water, and even more water.

Welcome to your home for the next... however long it takes to hike out...

But don’t despair! If Breakdown were to look up before he hit the sea, he would get a nice first class view of the Nemesis' engines roaring active with flares of blue light, and its entire frame canting tail up nearly vertical...

[Breakdown]

     Breakdown had seen his partner rush Soundwave and he wanted to move to help. His servo reached out, attempting to call out and stop him but that was stopped in its tracks. He heard a noise behind him and turned to look who was there. Skywarp was there but that wasn't what he was focused on. Flatine was being hurled towards him! He knew that it wouldn't hurt him- not that spiny lightweight in his state of unconsciousness- and he braced himself anyway by planting his pedes to the Nemesis floor.

     A flash of green and blue. Breakdown looked at the floor and recognized what was happening. He tried to call out to Knock Out but had only managed the first syllable before he was groundbridged out of there.

     In the next instant? He was falling. Straight towards a large body of water.

     Breakdown didn't have much time to react. From this height he could get major damage if he just belly-flopped without any means of protection. He twisted his frame around so that his back was now falling first and curled up into as tight of a ball as he could. There was nothing he could do. He wasn't a flyer. He couldn't stop this from happening. All he could do was try to make sure he didn't risk any harm to his spark if he had any hopes of...

     He hit the water surface. It rushed around him, cradling the new invasion. Breakdown was starting to sink. Limbs were loosening. His HUD flashed with warnings as his system attempted to recover from whatever was happening. It hurt and that was what he remembered. PRIMUS did it hurt. If he had been on his front? Yeah, would have probably caused a hitch in his spark's beating. He had to remain calm, collected, at least...

     'Knock Out!'

     Breakdown was sinking and his limbs just didn't want to function at the moment. His sytem was having a hard enough time trying to reset itself with the information it was taking in. He was sinking, unable to move, and was risking a complete forced stasis to recover.No, he couldn't allow that. He had no option to think of other things. He had to try and find a way out of this mess and going into stasis wouldn't help him. So he fought everything his processor was begging for. He moved bit by bit while he sunk.

     His digits at first, then arms, pedes, knees.
     Turned his helm.
     Shoulders were hateful, didn't want to do it but he made them anyway.
     Kick, roll, another kick.

     Breakdown was starting to manage his way to the surface. The higher concentration of salt water in this water was assisting with his struggles. It was a slow process, painful all the while, but he had to do it. He had to make it. Had to survive.

     Knock Out. He had to survive for him. Had to get out of this mess. Had to get back to the Nemesis.

     Had to kick Soundwave's aft.

     With that thought, he broke the surface with a loud shout. As if anyone would hear him but it was a great way to vent out the frustration and stings his frame held. He looked from one direction to the other and spotted a small bit of land way off in the distance. Grumbling, he tried to remember what he was supposed to do. Arms fanned out at his sides, moving back and forth while his legs kicked. He did his best to keep his helm above water so he could see where he was going.

     'Knock Out.'

     Breakdown just swam the best he could in the direction of land mass, ignoring all attempts of his system to shut down so he could reset. 

[Zercon]

Breakdown would soon get an assist when it came to heading towards the shore.

The noise... it was so loud, so difficult to articulate. It crashed with a booming roar akin to an explosion, but was much deeper, more guttural. Fueled by destruction of a straight up collision more so than combustion of some kind. The Nemesis that had been hanging in the sky at a tilted angle... it had come down, and wasn't exactly far away as it did so.

Looking at the ship from a distance, one knew it was large, they knew it had significant mass, this was most apparent within the actual bowls where hallway after hallway wove together into a small city. But... seeing it up-close from the outside truly put things in perspective as the sheering spikes of the ship's front armor ripped into the sea, and the rest it quickly followed suit.

The left wing cut down not far from Breakdown, slicing into the ocean with a shockwave that ruptured out with a guttural boom. This would have been bad enough on its own, but the mass of the wing had combined with the rest of the ship plunging down, causing a swell of water to surge up that would rise the bulky mech much higher than he initially was, while also threatening to suck him back under again.

If he managed to stay afloat, if he could keep above water and clutch onto whatever air still remained in his armor to assist, he would be pushed towards the shore more aggressively. If he managed to go under, and not make much progress away, than the opposite would happen... and Breakdown would find violent currents trying to suck back towards the Nemesis as water flowed and filled every nook and cranny of its exterior.

[Breakdown]

     Well. He hadn't expected THAT to happen.

     "Knock Out!"

     Sure he was still pissed at the cherry red mech, but that didn't mean he wished misfortune on him, and honestly? Being trapped under the ocean who knows how many miles down on a ship that who knows what the scrap was happening on? That was pretty bad.

     There WAS the issue of the feral Flatline on board, but he was probably still a hobbling mess of scrap being tossed around like the previous day's waste and couldn't do much more than hold on for dear life. So he wasn't such a fear for Breakdown at least. As long as Knock Out could stay away from him, stay away from Soundwave, Skywarp...

     Just stay away from everyone on the ship. Breakdown didn't like the thought of him being alone with any of them. 

     That was the panic that drove Breakdown to try and swim after the ship, even as the current created by the wing pushed him away. He wasn't a submerge vehicle so he couldn't just go down and get into the Nemesis easily and probably wouldn't be able to do much even when he would manage to get to the ship, but at least he would try. Knock Out was on there, and by Primus he was going to at least give himself that much. Even if he sunk to the bottom right along with the ship.

     He struggled against the waves, kicking, splashing, doing whatever he could. The force was stronger than he could manage, though, and he was being pushed away faster than he could swim forward. Still he tried, his engine humming in his chest as he struggled. The ocean water was already bothering him but he ignored it, just focused on trying to get back to the Nemesis. And once the wave would lower down? He would swim right back to where he was in hopes of somehow getting down to the ship as she sank.

[Zercon]

The pushback from the Nemesis' impact was severe, and Breakdown would find that getting back towards the ship was quickly becoming a very difficult if not futile task. The massive structure of metal and Cybertronian tech, jutted straight into the sky like a skyscraper, glittering flecks of glass and armor shining in the early day sun. It lingered straight up and down for a moment, before it began the gradual twist upside down, metal groaning and yowling, while its mass plunged into the deep, only a third of it still exposed to the air.

Sharp bangs that sounded like cannon fire ruptured then, some escape shuttles launching from the flank of the ship. Some cleared the water, spiraling away from immediate danger into the sky, leaving smokey trails in its wake, while those that tried to launch despite being under the waves already breached the water's surface in a spiral, tumbling as support fins and systems tore off it. Shrapnel rained down near Breakdown like a machinegun, pelting and narrowly avoiding slicing into him with some pieces that most definitely could end up being rather damaging.

The current Breakdown was attempting to fight...it was really a losing battle, a riptide pulling at him and starting to suck him under. The longer he remained in the water, the more air filtered out from between plates and components, forcing his buoyancy to dwindle and began failing. It really didn't take much longer, before the push and heft pulled him under and down towards the sandy floor below, sucking him towards the shore.

[Breakdown]

     Breakdown was not built to be a mech on water. Cybertronians didn't have to DEAL with this sort of scrap. Closest thing? Acid rain, and that stuff they had etched into their very core that even if there was the .01% chance that it was going to fall? You did NOT venture far from shelter. Breakdown had been out in those storms without it and had learned his lesson. That was all he had to deal with as far as the 'really bad liquid stuff'. Needless to say? He was learning that this ocean was just as dangerous. Maybe not with all the burning through armor and exposed circuits, but it was certainly part of that 'stay away' category that Breakdown was happy with just keeping track of.

     The current he was fighting was enough for him. His HUD was warning him of weight distribution issues and the tax that the salt water was doing to his internals. So he just stopped the struggle, doing only so much as to keep himself afloat the best he could, and allowed for the current to take him away from the sinking ship. This was not Breakdown giving up... no no. This was he planning to go to shore and rethink what he could do. He'd seen escape pods leaving the Nemesis so he hoped that Knock Out and the others had managed on those to get away. Not everyone would be able to escape a watery grave, but if he knew his partner? He'd find a way... which probably involved stealing the pod from one of the Vehicons. Not that Breakdown enjoyed that thought at all so he just pushed it out of his processor and continued his swim ( or flop in the water in some weird padding style to try and stay as close to surface or above surface as possible ) towards the banks of the nearest plot of land.

     From there he'd drain, dry out, and start to look. Some pods may have landed where he was going. All he could do? Hope.

     Right. Because THAT had done so well for him in the past. This truce stuff had to be getting to him...

[Feldspar]

The ocean was black and it was icy cold, even to a large alien robot made out of metal. It was this organic, constant force that even Breakdown's massive strength could not fight. Around him was a strange silence; this far away from any human shore, there was only the eerie, roaring sound of the waves when they splashed against his frame and plating.

Water seeped in along joints, the frigid sluice of brine crawling and licking into places it should not be.

He would catch perhaps one last fleeting view of the Nemesis as the great Decepticon ship thrashed in the darkness, pulled down by the depths he himself was fighting. It shuddered and twitched like a dying beast, great gouts of foam shining a luminescent blue as the running lights along the stern of of the great craft flickered in strange, desperate patterns.

Then, a massive wave wave cracked into Breakdown shoved him under and spun him in whirling circles. When he finally was able to see once again, he would find himself far away from that sinking craft; adrift among a vast, empty space.

Water roiled underneath the dark blue mech and he would find it hard to comprehend what was starless, cloudy sky or salt-laden depths. Foam rose high and slammed down over the mech's head; the waves grabbed at him, they whirled and pushed him and and sunk him under only for him to somehow surface again. Each passing minute that Breakdown struggled in the darkness of the vast ocean, the organic world attempted to drag him down into the depths with tendril-cold fingers.

As wanted to reclaim the things that the Decepticons had mined from the Earth, and leave him to rust among the muck and silt of the bottom of the ocean.

Yet after what felt like an eternity of struggle, perhaps, there was something on the horizon. Actually, there was an actual horizon in front of Breakdown, something tangible, something solid. Dark spires, protruding into a dark sky, standing like towers. He was pushed along, and abruptly, his feet would strike into the bottom of the bay, furrowing deep trails along in the thick mud of the ocean bottom.

Finally, the waves simply picked Breakdown up and tossed him up on a long expanse of stone-covered beach, as if the ocean was dusting its hands of him.

He would find himself chest-down among long tendrils of slimy bull kelp and rotting seaweed. The beach was not soft, cushioning sand; it was a layer of time-rounded stones and sharp barnacles, littered with tiny broken shells.

Around him, the high tide line was defined by a huge jumble of pale driftwood. The massive trunks crossed over themselves, stripped bare of bark and entangled with one another into a tall barrier between the desolate shore and the sea. There were no lights, no sign of civilization. There was only the quiet crash of the cold ocean against the land, and the rushing sound of the gaps in his plating draining water; echoed softly creaking of the wind in the pine trees that lined the edge.

Yet Breakdown was alive.

[Ravage]

Darkness moved. It had been standing in silence on the driftwood, focused on some distant point out there in the churning waters.

"Well," Ravage murmured. "That is... rather unfortunate."

[Breakdown]

     The world that had been around him only moments before was strange, so different from the hard surface of the Earth he had known for some time now. That world had no sound in spite of all the chaos happening around it, as though she muffled it for enjoyment only to be had to herself. But Davy Jone's Locker would not be having this Cybertronian to add to its collection...
 
     Who knows how many moments may have passed from the time Breakdown found himself face down on the solid, rough surface before he finally managed to his pedes. Water had been draining, joining its other massive half once it had escaped his frame, rolling over the rocks to greet the tides as it came in to collect it. Somehow, in spite all of the shaking up that Breakdown had gone through that should have put a mech on his rear for at least a few hours, this one was already upright and standing, staring out at the horizon where the Nemesis had been.

     Breakdown was driven, that was for sure, but he had no means in which to carry out what he felt he needed to do and what he wanted to do. He was a bruiser! He wrecked things! He tore them down! Shattered them! Struck them down with his might! The fact that he was standing here trying to figure something out that didn't involve brute strength? He was almost beside himself. Turmoil, paranoia and something else stirred within his processor and deep within the confinements of his chassis. What was he going to do? What COULD he do?
  
     Except take his aggression out on the talking cat that decided to pop up out of nowhere in typical trolling fashion, that is. Well, not exactly the company he was hoping for, but beggars and choosers and all that.

     Breakdown started to pace slightly before finally deciding on a direction, and it so happened to be right where the obsidian beast was perched. Not because he was meaning to confront him ( at least not that he would admit, but confrontation and smashing in faces was always his specialty ), but because he was walking that way along the shoreline and he just happened to be in the way...

     "I think it's a little more than 'unfortunate', kittycat. Don't you got some hole to climb back into?!" 

     There was a swing of a pede as it went to kick the driftwood Ravage was on. Well, it was in his way and he was just getting it OUT of there without having to waste the time walking around. The wood in comparison to what power Breakdown had behind those strikes of his? It probably wouldn't have stood much of a chance against him, and would have been best for Ravage get out of the way.

[Ravage]

"No," Ravage replied calmly. He lifted his nose into the air currents between them and sniffed lightly, but didn't move off of his log perch. He merely turned his sleek head as Breakdown rose to his feet. The waves crashed quietly along the dark stretch of shoreline. "However, I do know of one that will prove itself useful, perhaps."

He flicked his tail again and eyed the expanse of water. His thoughts were focused on one connection, and only one. It touched against his processor and flickered down his relays. He'd been on a mission, slinking through a night-time city street, reveling in the fact that he could move among the humans and they never noticed him, never realized he had passed them by. At times, one of their dogs might stiffen and bark and it always amused the cat as the owner turned around to admonish the animal for apparent misbehavior.

Tonight though, he had been focused on a trail within the city, trying to decipher a pattern he'd been trailing for weeks. MECH had gone to ground lately but it did not mean they were gone. The cat had caught the whispers, he'd sniffed the empty warehouses they'd hastily departed weeks ago. The humans had left nothing behind but a trash can full of moldy paper coffee cups and greasy fast food bags.

He'd been nosing through the mess and committing each scent of human to his memory banks when the constant connection between him and one other flared and rose in a strange, disjointed sense that it had never had before. He'd growled softly between his silver fangs; the plates on his shoulders shifting and raising as it warbled to him without words; but he did not need them to understand what it warned.

Stay away, stay away...

Now, it was strangely silent, and he was concerned. More so than he'd been in a very long time.

Ravage didn't move off the log until the very last moment. His leap was easy and controlled as he landed on the shore; as if he'd chosen that moment to hop down and Breakdown's strike really had nothing to do with his decision. The driftwood exploded in a ball of rotten shards as the big mech lashed out at it.

"We will need to find the others that have escaped and regroup quickly," Ravage murmured. He did not follow Breakdown up the shore, merely stood on the beach, sniffing the air that blew off of the waves. "The Autobots will soon realize what has happened."

A moment passed where the wind crackled in the treetops. The cat swiveled one ear towards his fellow Decepticon, listening to the mech's heavy strides staggering on the stones. "This way," he said and turned down the beach, padding along the edge of the waves.

"Also? Do not kick at me again," he murmured, his voice drifting back behind him.

[Breakdown]

     Breakdown couldn't argue with Ravage since what he said did, in face, make sense. As anxious and frustrated as he was he wasn't going to be able to think straight. Ravage would have to be the voice of reason that he usually relied on Knock Out to be while he did the smashing. When the feline moved in his direction, Breakdown grumbled and hesitated for a moment. 
Considering what he had seen from two fellow Decepticons, he trusted Ravage about as much as he did them. This didn't necessarily make him happy but what could he really do about it? He would need help to find the others. He NEEDED to find the others.

     "Don't get in my way and I won't have to kick at you," he replied back, glaring at Ravage as he followed after him. "And what are the Autobots really gonna do? Shoot us out of the sky? We're ALREADY sunk, in case you didn't notice. At least we're under a truce so they can't bother us too much." Though there was the other issue at hand that Breakdown was all too familiar with. The reason behind the stupid little truce that kept Breakdown's hammers from making a nice mash out of the Autobot's faceplates.

     MECH.

     Simply thinking about them made his energon boil and his servos formed into tight fits as his processor wandered. Humans were curious creatures when it came to things that were beyond the scope of their knowledge and he knew they would probably somehow find out about 'some mysterious vessel that crashed into the ocean' blah blah blah, then come running to check it out for themselves. That meant that MECH probably wouldn't be far behind. Not that Breakdown wouldn't mind paying them back for the incident with his optic... 

     First things first, and, sadly, Breakdown would need Ravage in this. As much as he wished he could just do this alone, that was almost an impossibility if he wanted it done with quickly.

     Breakdown hoped that among those that they may find that Knock Out would be among them. Not like the cherry red mech probably thought more beyond his own valuables from time to time, but at least his sense of self preservation was high enough that he'd probably have found a way off the Nemesis. Even so, if he wasn't? Breakdown wouldn't go. There was no way he was going to leave his partner behind to deal with whatever would come of this little stunt that had been pulled. Even if it meant searching along, Breakdown would ensure the medic was safe.

[Ravage]

Ravage's ears flattened ever so slightly back as Breakdown's good optic flared at him in the dark. The very tip of his tail twitched, and then stilled.

"That was the incorrect answer," he countered quietly after a long moment, and then said nothing more.

In the dark, he was merely a shadow against the cold shoreline. The stones that crunched and rattled under Breakdown's tread never made a sound under the cat's paws. It only sounded as if there was one Cybertronian walking up this long stretch of deserted beach. Water continued to dribble from Breakdown's joints, along with probably some very unfortunate fish and a surprised crab or two.

The curve of beach where Breakdown had been washed ashore disappeared behind them as they walked. After a long silence had passed between them, Ravage finally spoke again.

"Truces are only continued when both sides are at the same disadvantage," he said, even as he lifted his muzzle into the air. The cat's jaws opened as he drew in the wind and tested it in his olfactory sensors. However his mouth never moved as he spoke. His soft words seemed to rumble out of that dark, sleek chest and drift through sharp silver fangs.

He lifted a paw and stretched his attention out over that ocean for a moment. There were scents here that he found familiar. A spatter of old motor oil from a small skiff. Fading human touches on a soda bottle that rocked back and forth forlornly on the shoreline, waiting for a wave to pull it back out to shore where it would drift and join other lost plastic souls. Ravage sniffed at the air and flicked his tail in a thoughtful feline way, searching for any hint of Cybertronians.

"I fully expect this truce to end soon, one way or another. It will either be out of opportunity or perhaps desperation."

[Breakdown]

     "I hope it ends soon. I'm tired of having to play nice with the Autobot scum."

     It wasn't as bad as Breakdown made it ( or rather, the voice within his processor made it out to be ) but he was still going to complain about it. Working with the bots had left him feeling like he needed to hit the washracks more often than he really ever wanted to, especially with all the 'friendship and unity' crap he was fed from them.

     Okay, yeah, it wasn't so bad. At least the bots didn't try to sabotage each other, at least from what he could tell. They had a relationship as a collective whole much in the way Breakdown did with Knock Out- only without so much ego involved. Maybe it was a little nice. A LITTLE. Not that he was unhappy about being a Decepticon or nothing. No rules, really... except don't piss off their Lord. That was usually easy enough, but he would have loved to be a fly on the wall when Megatron found out it was apparently Soundwave's doing that had brought the Nemesis down.

     ... Not that he would want to be around when he found out that Breakdown had been the cause of almost all the damage to Flatline. Well, he'd just say it was a result from the ship's crash landing in the ocean. All that throwing around probably would have made it believable.

     "Can't seem to pick up on anyone through either the comms or my sensors. Must have gotten rattled up some." Breakdown had tried but received nothing but error messages. Apparently the water or the sudden stop when he hit it falling out of the ship had done some damage, shorting bits and pieces out that needed to be looked over to checked on. It wasn't anything he could do on his own, which meant that he needed to find Knock Out anyway.

     "I'll have to have Knock Out look over my systems when we locate him to make sure there's-" he paused, shaking his arm. There was a sickening 'CRACK' noise as a crab fell out from the joint and hit the rocks below. It snapped at the air before scuttling off under a piece of driftwood. "-no extensive damage." At least it was a good cover.

     "Picking up anything?"

     Perhaps a little too anxious, but it was for good reason. There was a nagging sensation, familiar to him, clawing its way through the dark recesses where he had banished it. Why was it there? Why was it coming back now..?

[Ravage]

They had come out from the deep shadows. Breakdown would now see the dramatic rise of cliff that had shadowed them, curved dramatically by wind and weather and erosion. Tall trees feathered along the ridge. The sky was still mostly overcast, as it always seemed to be in this area of the world at this time of the year.

Here and there the gold sunrise shimmered through.

Ravage seemed more alert now that he was a black obvious blot of cat-shape against the icy grey blue of the ocean waves, but perhaps that was because he focusing on scents and sounds that Breakdown himself wasn't able to hear.

The crab that had dropped out of Breakdown's seam seemed to glare at him with a sour little bob of tiny eye-stalks as they passed. He'd have sore pride from that fall, but a heck of a story to tell all his other crab relations when they got together sometime.

Ravage stayed silent as Breakdown spoke about his inability to raise anyone on the comms or sensors.

"You as well, then," he murmured, and one ear splayed slightly outward, tilting with concern. "I am not picking up any calls yet, distress or otherwise."

Ravage glanced up at the big mech as he picked his way along the sharp stones. When the cat had no choice but to walk through the puddles of salt water, he lifted each foot after and shook it off slightly, scattering droplets of water into the air. "I believe that you made it, we will find the others," he said. "Even the medic. I fear he will be busy after this."

"As for the truce, that is indeed tiresome," he rumbled. "Necessary at the time, but tiresome."

He paused on the shore and sniffed around a bit more, then continued walking. Ravage was a creature of scent and sound; he knew the fastest way to quarter an area, searching for any traces of fuel, of Cybertronian origin. They were so out of place on this organic slop of a world, clean and orderly against the chaos of smell that was Earth.

"We have had truces before, you know," he mentioned quietly. "We will have them again. They never last though, for logical reasons. Sooner or later there is a large event that shakes them to the foundation."  

With a soft swish of his tail, he eyed Breakdown, towering far above him on the beach. "How fast you get your wish depends on who is the one able to take up the reins of command after this. I personally do not think it will be long, though."

The sleek shoulders rolled in a feline shrug.

"Nothing so far," the cat said finally, eyeing the desolate, rocky beach. Birds cawed and chattered overhead now, the gulls shrieking at each other about some scrap of fish. The wind gusted against the pines, and the watery sunlight now was able to touch Breakdown's plating here and there, illuminating the dents and scrapes and scuffs of his hard-fought life.

"But I will," he told Breakdown. "Unfortunately, when we find him, the medical officer may have a lot of work on his hands to do."

[Breakdown]

     Breakdown had a feeling that this truce wasn't going to last one. Be it stopped by Megatron or someone else who wanted to take the command after his rule was over. Honestly, with the sudden crashing of their ship, who knew who had really survived. How many Vehicons had made it out considering that they were usually the last ones to be considered? The Decepticons were already limited in numbers and relied heavily on the mass produced Vehicons to strengthen their odds. Not to mention- had all of their initial crew actually gotten out?

     This was going to be an interesting turn of events, that was for sure.

     "With both sides grounded I imagine that we're on a more level playing field. Though the Autobots are stronger with their comradery so we may have issues over that. The truce is annoying, but for now? I think it's probably our best bet to keep it in place. We still have MECH to deal with, after all. Hate to admit it, but working with the Autobots is the better scenario..."

     Oh, it was painful to say that and Breakdown visibly flinched some when the words actually had to be spoken. He didn't feel that they were entirely wrong in that, though. With the Nemesis out of play ( apparently for now though who really knew for how long exactly- be it permanent or otherwise ) they would need to find a spot to gather their forces and recoup their numbers. The Neutral base? Seemed like a good enough idea. Not like they had any other means in which to use a ground bridge now and he knew that resources would be a thing they'd have to reacquire.

     "Just wouldn't be a good idea to turn our backs to the bots right now. Unless we're going for a hostile takeover but that would be a stupid idea. For now? Lets just try to find our men."