[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Internal Compass (Open)

[Petrichor]

Red…shirts? Yet another human reference that went over Petrichor’s head. She really needed to start spending more time learning about actual Earth cultures – and apparently the entertainment portion of it? Perhaps she could speak to the children about it? But they were so small and fragile…and very important to the original members of the base. That in itself was intimidating enough to make her wary around the small beings.

Petrichor brightened though when the two agreed to have her along. Finishing off the last of her energon cube, she moved to join Sundance in helping to hunt down their head of security or, barring that, one of the higher-ups to inquire the whereabouts of said head of security might be located. She paused though when Oversquare got distracted by a gaming interface. Petra had fiddled with it a grand total of once since arriving at base and after failing miserably, decided it wasn’t really her thing anyway. However, Oversquare’s admittance of being not only familiar with similar machines, but mercenary groups and firefights piqued Petra’s interest. It seemed her original observation about the femme having seen a thing or two had been correct. She briefly wondered if Oversquare herself had been a mercenary at one point or another.

“I’m all for going around base, but I’m not sure if we’re allowed outside the compound except on strictly mission-oriented business right now. We’re all currently on stand-by. I’m not entirely privy to the reasons why, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it has something to do with our chief medical officer having gone missing. Which is also probably why you couldn’t find Red Alert.”

Petrichor hugged her elbows and glanced down the hall that one would take to get to medical bay, her optics dimming with concern. She didn’t know Ratchet personally, but it was obvious he was an integral part of this team – not just as medical personnel, but as an individual. They needed him. She hoped he was alright, wherever he was, and that she would be able to help in whatever way she could.
Then a terrible thought occurred to her…

What if that’s not information I’m supposed to share with newcomers? Especially if they haven’t been check out by Red Alert yet? But, Oversquare seems alright… It’s not like she can really leave base right now anyway or communicate with anyone outside? Oh frag. Prowl and Red Alert are gonna kill me.

Nervously, Petra’s gaze flicked to Suni to see the femme’s reaction to her words.

[Deleted]

(Recieved permission from Sundance's Driver to post ahead of Suni)

"...I'm not sure if we’re allowed outside the compound except on strictly mission-oriented business right now...I’d say it has something to do with our chief medical officer having gone missing. Which is also probably why you couldn’t find Red Alert.”

Oversquare clocked her helm in surprise at the statement from the blue-pasteled 'bot. A medico gone missing? Well, that's problematic. She nodded her understanding at Petrichor and offered a glance at Sundance before focusing her optics back on the other.

The black and orange cycle-bot poked a digit at the young femme, lightly touching her on her shoulder armor. "Thank you for the info, but keep it to yourself until base personnel receive some sort of all clear; loose poly-jaws sink starships and stuff."

The older femme adjusted her human military-issue canvas tent, reaffixing a section over a shoulder pauldron. Having a poncho accoutrement was just a quirk she'd picked up over the years; the movement gave her a moment to consider her options. "I'm backtracking to my entry point...the control room? Travel bridge? I wouldn't want to go AWOL my first day, especially if there have been shenanigans." 'Square rotated the servos in her neck and continued speaking. "How about you two escort me so I don't wander off in my old age?" 

[Petrichor]

(Also received permission to post ahead of Sundance)

Petrichor’s shoulders dropped and she nodded demurely in agreement. Her and her big mouth. She knew better than to reveal potentially sensitive information around uncleared personnel. Primus, where was her head today? Listening to Oversquare speak again, Petra tried not to focus on previous her lapse in judgement.

“The control room, yeah, that’s where you would have come in from if you bridged. Sundance and I can lead you back.”

Her optics were drawn towards the fabric Oversquare wore as she adjusted it. Petrichor had yet to see anyone else at base with a similar addition. What was its purpose? Was it for protection? Maybe from the planet’s fine dust particles, but not much else. Perhaps it was merely aesthetic? It obscured some of her frame though, making the arms and servos less visible, so maybe it was for deceptive or stealthy reasons. Petra was about to inquire as to ‘why’ she wore such an article, especially since it appeared to be of human-make so it was most likely a recent addition, but decided to reword her question to one that would sound less insulting and simply ask ‘what’.

“What do you call that?” She indicated towards the short, cape-like fabric while moving to head back towards the control room. “It looks human-manufactured.”

[Deleted]

“What do you call that?” She indicated towards the short, cape-like fabric while moving to head back towards the control room. “It looks human-manufactured.”


As the femme-mechs jointly changed direction, Oversquare threw a glance over her fabric covered pauldron to the younger mech and answered. 

"It is. I acquired it when I'd made landfall; it's normally used as a fabric shelter for organics, if I read my prelim scans right." 

The femme offered a corner of the fabric to Petrichor; the greens, blacks, tans and browns of the splash pattern were in contrast to Oversquares black and orange armor and the silver/gray under-body coloring.

"I snagged it off an abandoned....uh, pod? One of those modular dwellings with wheels the Humies live in?"

The older mech readjusted the poncho after her cyan companion had finished checking out the fabric. 

"Anyway, when these organics we're trying to survive my colleagues and I were at the aft-end of some galaxy cluster, we'd been assigned an assass---," 'Square cut her vocal intonations, "---uh, I mean a job." She cleared her voder to cover the vocal slip up, the action causing a static sound. It wasn't that she was prim and proper, but Autobots were considered more polite company then, say, the 'Cons, for one to be discussing killings and the like...in her experiences.

"We'd done recon and the planet was about eighty percent desert terrain and the locals wore coverings as protection from the two suns, the sand and all that fun stuff. Let me tell you, that damn sand got bloody frakkin' everywhere but that's a whole other story." 

Oversquare did a slight flourish with her poncho and continued with the reason for her fashion choices. 

"Me and the other Mercs - a motley crew of organic, robotics - grabbed fabric from wherever we could and used as loose coverings to blend in a little more for our, uh, employment there." She shrugged a pauldron, causing the canvas material to rustle. "I decided I liked this poncho look and I've been wearing one ever since. Otherwise, its stored in my saddlebags when I kick off my alt-mode." 

'Square gave a half-smile to Petrichor, indicating the explanation for her fashion show had been concluded, her orange optics danced with a faint power surge of mirth...and perhaps some mischief...

[Sundance]

"It's a good look. Rugged and ready." Sundance approved. She herself wore a scarf, though it was actually a cybertronian made parachute. "I could never endure a gritty environment myself, scours the air filters, but fliers like me tend to be soft in that department." She said with a self deprecating chuckle. 

The few times she had flown the Rust plains had been enough to put her off such environments. She was really too much of a city gal. 

Sundance didn't miss Oversquare's slip of tongue but even before the war, she knew when to broach a topic and when to hold her own tongue. Having worked in the service sector, and especially so as a bar made, she had a skill for eavesdropping. Frankly she was quite curious about whatever dark mission Oversquare had partaken. Suni wasn't so naive to believe the Autobots could win the war with every iota of honor intact. You fight to win, or die. It was that simple.

She consciously shifted her half thoughts back to their locale. "Yeah let's head back, there isn't too much fun down here, and no apparently no Red Alert." Maybe a brief history lesson would help with the tour as the trio proceeded. "So this base has been operational for approximately five of the local years, since the Optimus Prime and crew crashed the Ark here. It's been heavily salvaged of course and anything easily used has been retrofitted into the base. The local Human government is working with us, and keeping our existence a secret from the greater population. The human species isn't quite ready yet to acknowledge aliens exist yet."

No doubt the other pair knew most of this, but Suni was doing her best to make the tour interesting when she herself had only been here a month.

"The base is a converted missile silo if you can believe it. The humans in their 200 odd countries have weapons vastly bigger than even us ready to obliterate each other so were careful not to trigger some irrational conflict, which can be awful claustrophobic when you want to go out and stretch a wing or wheel."  

[Petrichor]

Oversquare sounded like she had had some...rough and...interesting jobs, to say the least. Petrichor wasn’t going to ask though, because she was pretty sure she’d rather not know. Violence was never an easy thing for her, albeit, she was no pacifist either. Regardless, she was grateful that Oversquare didn’t go into detail about that particular part of her work though.

“Sand can be a pain, yes, but silt is the real kicker; it’s nearly impossible to get rid of, even with a pressure wash. Actually, it’s a common mistake to misidentify larger-grain silt as sand, so I wonder if what you guys were dealing with was actually silt? Because if the grains were smaller than...”

Petrichor’s words trailed off as she realized that she was getting off topic.

Not the point, Petra. And nobody cares about the specific requirements of silt, sand, or gravel except you. Just assume it was sand.

“Uh...I agree with Suni! About you. And the poncho. The poncho is a good look on you. Yep!”

Nice.

Primus save her, why?! Why was she always so painfully awkward? Instead of shutting up and letting the attention divert back to one of them though - to her horror - she kept talking.

“I don’t think I could pull something like that off. The fabric would probably get caught in some of my climbing equipment or get in the way somehow; then I’d be a real tangled up mess! Haha…”

She finally managed to shut down the nervous surge that was keeping her vocal processes going. Maybe it was the energon she drank? Pfft. Yeah, right. Her tongue effectively silenced, Petra fished out her piece of tetrinite and began fiddling with it while she enthusiastically threw herself into the act of listening to Sundance talk about the base. Anything to keep her from opening her malfunctioning mouth.

Most of the things Suni covered Petra was already familiar with, although she was still unclear as to where exactly the Ark had actually crashed. Was it here, where the base resided, and the humans had built a missile silo over it? Or had the missile silo already been here and the Ark had crashed elsewhere? The last one made more sense to her. Although, that made Petra wonder if there were still pieces of the Ark out there that could potentially be scavenged? Obviously all the important bits had already been removed and repurposed, but even parts of the hull could be useful. Her eyes focused on the small, smoothed piece of tetrinite in her hands. Cybertronian metal was very versatile.

“-which can be awful claustrophobic when you want to go out and stretch a wing or wheel."

Right. They were talking about humans and the base, not the Ark.

“I don’t know. I’ve been in much tighter spots than this. Although, I’ll be the first to admit it is a little boring in here when there’s a whole world out there. But at least we’re not drifting in space!”

Petrichor still had nightmares of that stupid little tin-can of a shuttle Kamal had picked her up in. By the Allspark, that thing had nearly been the death of her. She fought off a shudder. Space was definitely not for her. She’d take being stuck living inside a rock formation with gravity any day. Actually, now that she thought about it, the base was pretty fragging cool, what with it being concealed within one of the surrounding landscapes many buttes. Ooo! She should take some samples from one of the exposed walls to take a closer look at the crystalline structure later! How had she not done that yet?

[Deleted]

“I don’t think I could pull something like that off. The fabric would probably get caught in some of my climbing equipment…” - Petrichor

The older mech cocked her helm to one side. "Climbing equipment? As in one of the big feckin' mountains I observed here on my atmo entry flight?"

Oversquare was all for a conversation. A *normal* conversation, not a plotting session among a motley crew of reprobates intent on assassinating some poor git on a gods forsaken planet and then looting the slag out of everything.

She shook off the melancholic flashes from her storage processor and gave her full attention to Petrichor's answer.

"The local Human government is working with us, and keeping our existence a secret...The human species isn't quite ready yet to acknowledge aliens exist yet." - Sundance

The cycle-femme shook off the uncharacteristic feeling of...embarrassment? shyness?...that bubbled in her processor core; she opted instead to offer a two-digit acknowledgment of the talk regarding the acquired garb.

'Square settled her frame to half-sit against one of a grouping of polymer storage containers and crossed her forearms over her blunt squared chest piece.

"That makes sense. These organics have their own problems with territorial disputes, governments, wars and whatever other issues from what I've gathered listening to the wave bands."

She pointed up towards the atmosphere.

"Giant mechanicals from outer space? Yeah, that's a no-no unless you enjoy end of times type drama from the organics."

Oversquare quieted, considering her next words carefully. I mean, it wouldn't do to freak out her new comrades.

"...how are the relations between the Prime and the Humie government, exactly? Any feedback?"

Her battered frame clicked slightly as she gestured in a shrug. "My last, erm, employment is and was worlds away from this. Literally. But if clan leaders clashed with a local cartel or government..."

Oversquare stopped her vocals, optics fixed to one side for a moment and muttered a vehement "Ah, feck it."

Her attention then  flicked between Petrichor and Sundance. "What I'm tryin' to get at is this organic government? Any issues with those aware who may not take kindly to giant robots from space?"