[ti]Ep 3[/ti]"Feel It Turn" (Closed)

[Feldspar]

(Thundercracker and Dart) 

Episode 3.0, Week 3, Day 1 - 5:26 AM (well, give or take a few minutes)  

Starscream's cameo completely Ren approved, thank you! 

Dawn touched the Steens Mountain range. It was slightly cloudy this morning, the drifts of wispy grey reflecting the red and gold of the sunrise. On the horizon, the blue crags of the rugged range pressed up sharply against the curve of the sky. Beneath Thundercracker stretched a organic landscape of dull brown, touched here and there with with ochre and yellow and pale-green gray.

The earlier conversation had gone along the lines of something like this.

Patrol duty, yes, yes, you're assigned to that. Fly this pattern across this space, this many hours, report anything out of the ordinary back. I assume you know what to do if there actually is anything out of the ordinary, of course.

There might have been a dismissive hand-wave involved. Maybe two.

So after the first forty-five minutes or so, there was a good chance Thundercracker was patrolling through the air with the understanding that he'd been assigned drudge work. Absolutely boring drudge work. Work that should have honestly been given to any random Vehicon that happened to have a flying alt-mode.

Actually he could have picked up a rock, bolted wings onto it and thrown it, and it would have reported back to command with the exact same thing he'd so far seen all morning.

Which was more rocks. Also much dirt. 

To top it off, Thundercracker hadn't even been assigned anyone else to fly with. On one hand, it meant he certainly could be alone with whatever thoughts were in his head. On the other, it meant that there wasn't much of anything to do except idly watch the landscape flow beneath him.

On this third- maybe fourth, who knew -pass, the blue jet-mech would find himself winging over an empty basin, a curved out scoop of a space between two higher ridges of rock. Patches of faded yellow grass were interspersed with scattered pines and long stretches of silvered sagebrush.

A glint below manifested itself as an actual stream, one of the few spills of water coming down off the mountains. The fact that it was still running was a rare commodity this time of year. It channeled itself across the countryside, the banks on either side a sharp, bright green with overhanging tangles of thick brush and trees. 

The ribbon of water bounced across stones, frothed and foamed white in small sections of rapids.
It curved and meandered back and forth, stretching a distance before it sharply tumbled down into a tight and narrow gorge that was flanked by huge boulders and spilled out into a pool before continuing onward. 

Strangely enough, there was something within that edges of that pool that Thundercracker wouldn't likely expect out here in this desolate, rocky twist of land.

Motion.

The mech had likely observed some movement as he'd flown over the landscape. Earth animals, clustered in tiny herds. Many of them were small, their tan and cream colors blending artfully into the landscape, designed to hide in plain in the high desert among the basalt outcrops and sagebrush. Others were larger; bands of multi-colored creatures that seemed to concentrate within the dry grass of the basins.

Far beneath him, flocks of birds  had flickered back and forth before they disappeared into the rocky crags.

This though, wasn't like any of those kinds of movements.  It certainly wasn't animals taking a drink at the edge of the pool at the base of the waterfall. Nor was it one of the human off-road vehicles Thundercracker had perhaps observed on the far edges of the range. Those square, boxy Jeeps trundled in patient service along the rutted roads, leaving a dust cloud behind them that was visible even from high up in the air.

It was something else out of place among the tan and red rocks, and the wash of green growing things. Dark and large and it moved in a way that wasn't natural.

No, it simply wasn't natural for Earth.

Another Cybertronian, then. Out in the middle of the wilderness, surrounded by terrain where there wasn't even a memory of a road.

As Thundercracker's engines rumbled overhead, the robot down below apparently heard the growl of his flight.

It startled, lifted its head in a quick glance upwards. Then it immediately froze in place, as if it instinctively knew any movement in this sort of landscape attracted bad attention.

[Thundercracker]

So it had detected him...

Thundercracker passed once overhead before turning back around towards where he saw the motion. Another Cybertronian, here? It wasn’t giving off any signals. Perhaps it was an unaffiliated member of the species that never took part in the war and fled to this planet. Though how it avoided being press-ganged into the conflict was beyond him.

The cerulean seeker passed overhead again just above the trees before activating his T-cog. With a sound of mechanical shifting the fighter jet seemed to split apart in a smooth, organized pattern before reformatting itself into a large, bipedal form which came down to Earth with a loud thud. He turned to face the source of the motion.

Why was he doing this?

Honestly, he didn’t really know at this point. Maybe it was the fact that he had spent the last few decades alone soaring through space with one one to talk to, and then the first bot he runs into happens to be his estranged trinemate and his sycophantic psychotic lapdog. Still, pays to be prepared in case of hostilities.

His right forearm shifted into a blaster while his left servo reached up behind his head to grasp the short sword stored there, drawing it out but holding it pointed down in a non threatening motion. He wanted to be ready in case it was an Autobot, years of being alone had made him slightly jumpy when dealing with unknowns.

“I know you're there. Identify yourself.”

[Dart]

Well, it was a Decepticon after all.

Her badly scarred faction badge was obvious and displayed on her upper chest, framed by a faded silver lightning bolt.

A femme; tall, long-legged, and lean. She appeared to be black and soft grey, but her plating looked as if it had rarely (if ever) seen a bubble of soap or an attempt at a wax. Covered in a patina of hard wear, scratches, and gouges, she was spattered up and down with dried red mud, and smeared with pale dust and road-grime. One forearm was wrapped up in some sort of filthy grey tape.

She was also standing shin-deep in the pool of water.

Whatever the other Cybertronian was doing out there this morning in the pond, it wasn't likely a bath... unless today happened to be her knee-and-below only day.

* * * *

Dart had sucked a nervous gulp of air into her intakes as the jet swept through the sky overhead. She stayed frozen in hopes that no, the aircraft hadn't seen her, and they might just continue on. Maybe it was just a nice human jet right? Doing uh, human jet things.

Right. In the middle of this space in Oregon? Absolutely not. It had to be one of them. Normally she would have just figured that it probably another Decepticon, since there were now so many she didn't know. She tended to try and stay away from the outpost as much as possible now. There was way too much anger and tension and stress among the crew. Especially now that they were forced to live beneath the surface of a planet a lot of them flat out hated. However, this also meant that with so many of them, sooner or later someone would make the mistake that would get them noticed, and it would be terrifyingly possible for the Autobots to have a random patrol overhead.

Tension shuddered through her frame as she cast a quick glance to one side and the other. There was no running now, not in this craggy, empty landscape. At least nowhere that a jet couldn't lazily sweep after her and shoot her full of holes. So she froze and watched the mech smoothly transform and land, already readying his weapons. Her blue optics were wide as she shot a fearful glance at the blaster and sword, but- 

Sword down. Blade down, not up, he was just holding position and ready, not coming forward to strike. Oh please, let him be just holding position.

Dart had absolutely no clue who this mech was. At first, she'd almost thought it was Thundercloud- the blue mech with that not so nice Autobot officer, but- no, he wouldn't have bothered with weapons. He just would have used a single fist to knock her head clean off her shoulders.

The morning sunlight on the tall blue mech's wings illuminated the Decepticon symbol he wore.

Oh. He was a Deception. Also, while this jet-mech was certainly broad and tall, he wasn't a powerhouse wall-of-massive. Not Thundercloud's kinda-close-but-not-really Max sized massive.

Well, she'd been out here a while. Maybe they'd sent someone to corral her back home. Or check up on exactly what she was doing. Thank goodness she was patrolling exactly where she was supposed to be. For once.

She knew. One of these days she wasn't going to be, and- well...

Yeah. That. If my brain doesn't end up in a jar first.

Automatically, she tipped her nose towards the jet-mech and a nervous little whuffle pulled air into her olfactory sensors. All sorts of odors scrabbled to be recognized; crushed grass, algae that coated the far rocks, different species of animals that had come down to drink, and the heavy, ever-present smell of organic dirt. The breeze was fairly sullen, so little scent drifted down from him. What did immediately touched in her head as something different. Yes, there were the odors of the base itself, of a few other mechs, of course.

Yet this mech smelled of clean sky and air and the faintest brush of salt, like the way the air smelled when she trotted along the dunes close to the ocean. Places she did not know, scents that had no memory or correlation in her head.

Dart didn't seem to know what to do with her hands. At first she fearfully lifted them, her palms up in surrender and appeasement. It was a gesture she relied on often, one of please, please don't shoot the messenger. Then at his query, she gave a little apologetic "oh", immediately straightened up and tucked her hands behind her back, fingers lacing together as she set herself into a polite, respectful, parade-rest stance.

"Dart, sir," she replied quickly. "Can- can I help you, sir?"

[Thundercracker]

So it was a Decepticon, or at least had been one at any rate. And a femme to boot, the kind that Thundercracker would have flown canopy to canopy with Starscream back in the day in Vos to impress then fought with his trinemate over.

Back in the old days...before the war...

"Dart, sir. Can- can I help you, sir?"

She was afraid of him. He could tell by...well, many things actually. He was bigger than her, holding two weapons out in plain view. Maybe she was a deserter, since her signal was not transmitting, though it could be she was walking wounded, suffering from processor trauma. Honestly he did not know what to think anymore.

He sheathed the short sword back into its place on his back then folded up the blaster back into his forearm. He held up his hands indicating he did not want to fight, keeping them spread out and palms forward towards her. Some bots he knew would have been all over this, throwing around their rank or enjoying the fear that was generated.

That was not him though, no matter what others thought.

“No need to get all formal. I’m no officer, just a soldier. I was not aware anyone else was supposed to be patrolling this sector.”

Did she end up on Starscream’s frag over list too? Or was she just unlucky like some bots were in the end.

[Dart]

A little blink shuttered Dart's optics.

He's just a soldier?

The other Decepticon did not fit what in her brain constitued a soldier.

Soldiers, as far as she'd ever known, were not someone like this flier appeared to be. They were nameless ground-pounders, Vehicons, unimportant grunts that were simply there to be expendable. No rank, no file, nothing much needed but the ability to point, shoot, punch, and report back. The Decepticons needed bodies to fill a space, to fight a war. To take the point and also a bullet.

Dart was used to most mechs like this being ranking officers, so to hear that he wasn't one... that was a huge surprise.

What was also a surprise was that he immediately sheathed the sword and quickly put away his rifle as well, tucking the weapons away. Then he stretched out his hands, mirroring her gesture. Dart picked up on body language more then she ever did on words; his had shifted quietly and quickly- the angle of his wings, the lines of his frame. So many mechs would step forward in an effort to intimidate, to get the answers they wanted faster.

Behind her narrow shoulders, the tips of her spoiler twitched back and forth, and then slowly pricked forward.

Oh. He didn't come for a fight. He's not looking for one. He's just was maybe prepared for one? I think. Not sure.

He did have a question though. One that made a lot of sense, she rarely saw anyone out here either. Vehicons mostly. Once in a rare while it was Starscream, winging overhead at night probably to be alone with his thoughts.

"I- I do a wide patrol, sir," she replied quickly, but there was an unsure note in her voice. The water she was standing sloshed as she shifted her weight back and forth from foot to foot, as if she wasn't used to standing still.

She glanced around them. "A long loop," she offered in explanation. "There are perimeter stations that warn if someone comes in by ground, but- er, sometimes the weather causes issues. Especially when it rains, sir."

A pause. "I don't think I've seen anyone else out this far here for a long time...?"

[Thundercracker]

Now she seemed...confused?

"I- I do a wide patrol, sir. A long loop. There are perimeter stations that warn if someone comes in by ground, but- er, sometimes the weather causes issues. Especially when it rains, sir."

So she was on patrol as well, the kind that was certainly necessary on a fixed military installation like Blackridge. And given her surprise at his last statement, she was pretty low on the totem pole to have gotten stuck out here. Kind of like him, though perhaps unlike her he had chosen to walk away from power.

"I don't think I've seen anyone else out this far here for a long time...?"

How long had she been out here on patrol? Days, weeks, months even? That would be a possible explanation of why she was no longer transmitting her Decepticon signal.

“Again with the sir, my name is Thundercracker. I just arrived on Earth yesterday and Starscream slapped me with patrol duty.”

That last part was spoken with a sense of disregard towards the subject of the sentence, bordering on slight irritation, though not the usual type associated with the usual rank and file grumbling. It seemed almost more...personal. He squatted down, holding out an open servo as an offering to help her up out of the water and onto dry land.

“How long have you been out here? And...your transmitter is no longer transmitting a signal by the way. That’s why I came at you a bit...roughly...”

He gave a sort of sheepish grin in a sort of apology. He didn’t usually come at people guns drawn and swords out. Usually...

[Dart]

A flier. An obvious fighter. Who gave her his name and and didn't appear to want the honorific of a superior officer. Most of the time when she called someone sir among the ranks, they didn't correct her. In fact the rank and file simply took it as their due and let her go by, ignoring her completely, which she appreciated.

(Sure, even the mop bucket back at base was likely her superior officer, but hey.)

So, he'd arrived on Earth yesterday, and immediately Starscream sent him out to patrol in the middle of nowhere? It wasn't even part of the main sectors the Vehicons were normally assigned to cover. Dart could absolutely count on one hand the number of times that she'd actually seen another Decepticon out in this area in the last year.

Everything about this mech was out of the ordinary, and strange. While Dart was wary and nervous, especially around new mechs she didn't know... Odd situations such as this one set her on edge even more than before.

A thought crept up into her head. It's possible he's one of Soma's people.

There wasn't anything that was safe out there from him. Dart knew for an absolute fact that there were likely folks he had under his control here on Earth, and that was terrifying.

That said, they've never used Decepticons, she chided herself. The sigils on Thundercracker's wings were as obvious as the one she wore; there was nothing subtle about them.

Then she tried to remember exactly where the landmarks around the basin. Just in case she needed to bolt out of here with a yelp and start running for her life.

... slapped me with Patrol duty.

Wait. After all these years, Dart recognized a near-growl in someone's voice, especially when folks were talking about Starscream. Which was understandable for many reasons.

One was that the Air Commander held grudges and did not let them go easily. Two was that he usually made someone else's life miserable when he was acting on those grudges. Three, that most folks didn't appreciate Starscream quite like he himself did and so they often made comments wishing he'd end up on the bad end of a bird strike.

It was amazing what you overheard when no one thought you were of any importance.

She was still thinking about that when the big flier lowered himself down a bit, and reached out his hand towards her, palm up, fingers outstretched.

Dart was not used to her fellow Decepticons reaching a hand out towards her with the best of intentions. Where she had been fairly still, now the courier warily looked up at him and fidgeted in the water, shifting her weight uneasily back and forth over her feet. The tips of her spoiler flicked back and forth, back and forth.

Then she lifted her jaw slightly, angling her nose into the air currents that drifted between them. There was a soft huffing sound as her intakes drew in a pull of air and washed it over her olfactory systems. Dart figured out most of her world by scent, and this was so, so confusing and needed to be sniffed and processed a hundred times over. It didn't help.

Finally, the metal behind her shoulders twitched and fell back into a lopsided line.

Dart dropped her hands to her sides and started to back up. He didn't move closer though, or press forward, merely remained still, offering her his hand to climb up and out. She realized it, caught herself, and then gave him her own apologetic look.

"I'm sorry," she offered quickly. "I- I'm awfully dirty, sir - er, Thundercracker, sir. One second, I'm okay, I'll get out."

With that, the femme broke into a trot, sloshing through the water. It frothed and silvered around her strides. A moment later and she'd scrambled up out of the gully onto the rocks nearby. She was careful to keep a polite distance from the mech. Dart was respectful about space.

"My transmitter...? Oh. It does that. My comm-system, I mean. Mine's gitch-"

Dart seemed to catch herself on that word and looked at the ground. When she glanced back at him, Thundercracker's sheepish grin was an expression she rarely saw on many Decepticons. She hesitated.

Roughly? No, that was one of the politest sword holding gun-pointy moments she'd ever seen.

"It's okay," she reassured him quietly. "It- It's never worked right, I would have wondered what I was up to, honest. Oh, how long I've been out here? All night. Er, if you mean the outpost itself, close to a year, though."

"It's been here for a while," she explained, glancing around them at the rugged landscape.

"This was just a small, remote outpost until the Nemesis went down. Commander Starscream gathered up everyone and moved them here after that happened."

[Thundercracker]

She was still suspicious of him...understandable.

Perhaps he should have been more suspicious as well, more closed off and guarded. But quite honestly, it was nice to relax his guard occasionally without having to keep optics in the back of his head all the fragging time.

His optics followed her as she headed to the side of the pool and climbed out, moving to dry land. She kept her space, still seeming to be suspicious of him. But when you had to deal with the likes of Starscream and Coldwind, it would be reasonable to be wary, especially of Seekers.

"My transmitter...? Oh. It does that. My comm-system, I mean. Mine's gitch-It's okay, It- It's never worked right, I would have wondered what I was up to, honest.”

Good to know there were no hard feelings about that. She seemed to be humble though, that was a trait that seemed to have gotten lost over the decades amongst the Decepticons. Almost as if she thought she was not even worth the time of the medics back at base.

“Oh, how long I've been out here? All night. Er, if you mean the outpost itself, close to a year, though. It's been here for a while, This was just a small, remote outpost until the Nemesis went down. Commander Starscream gathered up everyone and moved them here after that happened."

Starscream had always been a decent administrator and clever bot, so there was some truth to the idea that he could actually take charge. But being Winglord of Vos was different from command of an army of raging revolutionaries who lost their way through centuries of violence and brutality.

“You should head back and get checked out by the medics anyway. We’re going to need everyone at their fighting best. Wasn’t that the whole point of the revolution?”

That last part had a pinch of irony thrown in. Thundercracker had never believed in the Decepticon cause like some bots; like those who had every speech, every propaganda ad memorized and hardwired into their processors. Partially that was because he had been trinemates with the Winglord of Vos and sat at the upper crust of society and only threw in with them out of loyalty to Starscream at the time. The other part...well...

That had come after centuries of thought and deliberation.

[Dart]

Rarely did a Decepticon look at her lately and suggest for her to see a medic. To be fair though, Dart simply avoided everyone as much as possible. The less you were noticed, the more it made life easier for her. This so far was the one of the longest conversations she'd had lately with a fellow Decepticon. Most of them just looked at her, grunted, and pointed to some task. Which was just fine with her, Dart preferred that.

Something else slunk forward out of her thoughts, a recent encounter she'd had not long ago.  

Calm and quiet words, gentle and easy, as if the white mech truly was concerned for her well being. The tiny smile that curled up the corner of his mouth was accentuated by the steady, sharp focus of those bright blue optics on her.

This – femme, this – messenger – is obviously confused. The poor thing. She must have wandered in from the last supply shuttle. You know how their crews get after a long trip. Perhaps we should find a biobed for her to lie on and – take a look at her.

Oh boy, that was a memory that she honestly wished she didn't have. Especially right now.

Thundercracker seemed different, and different wasn't always good. It wasn't. Not among Cybertronians.

This time there was even more hesitation. She cast a quick glance down at herself, at the deep, weathered burn lines drawn across her wear-faded purple sigil and then found herself looking at the rocks under her feet. They were nice rocks. Dart appreciated solid, sensible basalt.

"I'm assigned to stay out here on patrol until tomorrow evening," she told him. "Er, as for the comm stuff, they've tried fixing it before, honest. It's really not the comm itself or the fault of any medics, it's er, how my systems talk to it, I guess. It'll uh, come back on when it feels like it."

The scruffy femme looked up when she finished speaking and then quietly listened to him.

"I don't fight, s-"

Dart straightened back up, setting her feet just so on the rocks beneath her. Her hands moved and settled at the small of her back again before she shook her head. "I'm just a messenger. A courier. I'm not a fighter, really."

The courier pulled in a puff of air and held it, turning Thundercracker's scent over again in the back of her systems. Sky and air, the smell of a distant ocean. There was a faint drift of other Cybertronians but nowhere near where it would have been had he been in this place for longer than a day.

He had to be telling the truth about being here and then being tossed out to fly pattern grids over the landscape. Also, he truly hadn't tried to push closer, or reach out a hand again. He hadn't taken it personally that she'd sidestepped his help.

"Which makes sense to why I'm assigned out here," she offered softly and carefully. "I- I don't understand about you, though."

[Thundercracker]

Sounds like this femme had a lot of rotten luck. It certainly explained why she seemed hesitant around him.

"I'm assigned to stay out here on patrol until tomorrow evening. Er, as for the comm stuff, they've tried fixing it before, honest. It's really not the comm itself or the fault of any medics, it's er, how my systems talk to it, I guess. It'll uh, come back on when it feels like it."

“Sorry to hear that.”

He slowly edged back so that he was sitting on his rear, keeping his legs tucked in and away from the water. Thundercracker really hated being submerged underwater at all, though a good trip through the rain while in flight was not that bad. He slowly tucked his hands into his lap while watching her, being sure to keep them in plain view so as to ease her apprehension.

"I don't fight, s- I'm just a messenger. A courier. I'm not a fighter, really."

Ah hah...that might also explain why she looked the way she did. Once a necessary position when communications had been jammed or cut during the war back on Cybertron, now on Earth it seems like it was an unnecessary job. And...perhaps that explained why her comms were so shot to the pits. 

"Which makes sense to why I'm assigned out here, I- I don't understand about you, though."

Thundercracker looked up at Dart suddenly, before closing his optics and looking down with a deep sigh. This...wasn't something he was comfortable with discussing. Despite his problems with his trinemate, it was still an internal family matter. But she had been honest with him, so he’d share a small bit of what it was.

“Well...let’s just say...Starscream and I have a history that is...complicated...”

He let those words hang in the air without any explanation.

[Dart]

As Thundercracker settled down onto the rocks, Dart watched him place his hands into his lap. A Decepticon flier on the ground didn't happen often. Most of those she met would prefer to be in the air. Not all, of course, but most. Watching the mechs cut through the sky was like watching birds of prey. They moved easily through a world she herself could respect and admire, but knew she'd never honestly be able to truly understand.

Complicated...

The heavy sigh, the shuttering of the optics, the way the mech's dark hands were still and settled on his plating. Right. That she understood to the bottom of her soul. Personal things were personal, and she respected that.

Behind Dart's shoulders, the tips of her spoiler pricked forward and then slowly smoothed back into a soft, uncertain line.

She'd seen a situation happen many times now. Here in Oregon. Alaska. Australia.

Before all the mess had happened with the Nemesis, the last soldier Starscream had assigned to here had been a soft-hearted mech, broad and tall, almost too large for the warren of tunnels within the outpost. He had been there for at most a few months and then one day, he just wasn't. All her nose had told her was that he was gone, and every time she went back into the outpost, his quarters sat vacant, his scent slowly fading away until all that remained was only an olfactory echo on an cold, empty berth.

Perhaps he had been ordered to take the point on a scouting mission, his lumbering frame a clear and obvious target to a well-placed shot. Or it was possible he'd been assigned to clamber up some hill or dig out some resource in the high country. Even a huge mech like that could be crushed to death in a landslide. Maybe they'd been ambushed, or gotten into a nasty scuffle and he'd been told to stand his ground - Autobots aren't dangerous, you fools! Hold the line and fight!

Hopefully Thundercracker's history wouldn't get him assigned by Starscream into Pyrotech's command. 

"Commander Starscream is complicated," she agreed, and left it at that.

A bird chirped from somewhere deep within the scrubby trees. It could be heard even over the rushing bubble of the water, trilling softly into song over the silence between the two robots.

Dart shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She lifted her nose and sniffed at the air before she eyed the sky overhead. Then she ducked her helm as she turned the conversation of the last few minutes over in her head.

Oh. He didn't call him Commander Starscream.

A thoughtful look crossed her face, there and gone in an instant before she raised her gaze back towards where Thundercracker sat.

"If it would help at all, I could show you where the main transmitters are, sir. For the perimeter stations," she offered. "I know where they all are, and how to check on them safely."

[Thundercracker]

"Commander Starscream is complicated."

Well...that was an understatement. To put it mildly. But...it had not always been that way. Back in the old days...before the war...before all of...Thundercracker shook himself out of his self pity before rising up onto his peds, looking over at the smaller bot.

"If it would help at all, I could show you where the main transmitters are, sir. For the perimeter stations. I know where they all are, and how to check on them safely."

That actually was a pretty good idea. Thundercracker did not have much idea of where he was going, having only been told to fly grid squares in a search pattern. It would also be nice to get another view of what he expected to be his home for a long time. From what little he’d seen of the planet, it was a nice enough place, but he had not seen much.

“Sure, thanks. If you...have the time...”

He did not want her to get in any trouble. If she had to make a report from a specific location at a certain time...well that might be a stretch but anything could be possible right now.

[Dart]

That sort of near-casual, automatic thanks was rare among the Decepticons.

As he rose to his feet, Dart's hands slowly unclasped from behind her back, and she hesitated, then let them fall to her sides.

"I have time," she replied. "It's okay. Honest. My Commander expects all of us to report in if something is off. Not if everything is normal, sir."

Which was true. That was how Pyrotech had always worked. Everyone under him learned quickly that you didn't bother him by telling him there wasn't a problem if he hadn't asked you specifically to call in at every station. If you didn't call when there was an issue, well... that was when the bad stuff happened.

Over the last year, Dart's job had been to lope around in endless circles, sniff things, and hopefully stay out of the architect's way. That was fine with her because she truly enjoyed all three of those activities. Out here on the empty range, she enjoyed the freedom and distance of the landscape, she got to watch wildlife (and sometimes people if she was lucky) and well- sometimes she got brave enough to run off and extend those circles.

Just a little bit. Tiny bit. Fingers the barest smidge apart bit.

Okay, a whole lot. Dart loved the other parts of the Pacific Northwest. Deep pine forests on the slopes of Three Sisters and St. Helens. The scent of the ocean, the way she could clamber up parts of the dunes that people rarely hiked to and then slide down the other side, the sand spattering up around her feet. Bookstores and coffee shops where she could just be herself for a tiny bit and simply sit at a table in comfortable silence to write a postcard or two with her silly, stupid gel pen.

Not to mention that Red Rock and Vegas were amazing. Even more so with good company.

Hopefully the small box she carried in the right-hand pannier on her hip didn't start ringing her up anytime soon though. It was usually pretty good about timing. Surprisingly good, whew.

"The closest one isn't far from here," she offered. "If we walk, it might take half an hour or so.  I tend to follow the wash for a bit. Then a climb, but it isn't bad. Er, or if you'd rather fly, sir...?"

Dart trailed off, obviously leaving that choice up to him.

[Thundercracker]

"I have time. It's okay. Honest. My Commander expects all of us to report in if something is off. Not if everything is normal, sir."

Well that was certainly a good sign about this place. Thundercracker had run into quite a few officers who had either an overdeveloped sense of ego, or a self inflated sense of needing to know everything as soon as it happened. Sometimes both. Like someone he knew quite well...

“Well then, lead on.”

There was something about this planet...Thundercracker had been to many different planets before and after the war on Cybertron. But this Earth seemed...different somehow. He could feel it in the atmosphere as he flew, on the ground as he walked. Perhaps Dart might know something about this, because it was not something he could put his finger on currently. Though that was interrupted by what Dart had to say next.

"The closest one isn't far from here. If we walk, it might take half an hour or so. I tend to follow the wash for a bit. Then a climb, but it isn't bad. Er, or if you'd rather fly, sir...?"

“Nah, I need a good walk around. It helps to get a view on the ground...and I’ve been stuck in alternate form for the last two vorns. Though when it comes to climbing I can take both of us up in flight.”

He paused before continuing.

“And...what is it about this planet? Besides all the energon that we’ve found. There’s something else...I can feel it. Something special?”

[Dart]

Lead on....

That was a task she understood and was comfortable with out in the wilderness. Dart nodded and automatically lifted her hand to brush her sigil in a quick salute before she turned slightly on the rocks. She lifted her nose, sniffed at the air, and then began to pick a path out of the scrubby brush. Thorny branches bent and scraped along her plating, but the courier eased through, careful to where she placed her feet and did not leave an easy to see swath of broken vegetation behind her.

The section of grass the two Cybertronians were treading on would go from green to brown fairly quickly. After several more strides, what remained only as scattered tufts of dry, brittle yellow as they left the water behind. As they moved onto the pale, dry soil, the tall femme eased over into a position slightly off of his left shoulder. It almost felt as if it were automatic response on Dart's part, trained into her, and trained well. She remained at a careful, polite distance though, and certainly was out of reach of both his hand or a well-placed kick.

Under Thundercracker's weight, the light desert soil compacted under each step. It didn't feel quite solid, but it didn't also didn't give the impression that it was going to slide out from under him, either.

Dart glanced over at him. To hear the mech admit that he wanted to get a view on the ground was also something she wasn't used to. Had it been Starscream, or most of the other jets, they would have immediately lifted off and shot into the air.

Well, it was looking not so good as to why this mech was sent out into the Oregon desert to- okay, never mind, there was the flying part.

Dart quietly sidestepped even thinking about that offer and concentrated on something else Thundercracker had said.

Two vorns?

Dart knew that it was a measurement of time, she'd heard mechs say it before. Unfortunately, she had absolutely no clue to how long that would have been on Earth. Did Thundercracker mean it was a long time as being stuck behind someone at a fast food window with a van full of kids leaving soccer practice, or did the jet-mech mean long time as in hey, so, about those dinosaurs?

It could have been either. Transformer time was an alien concept to her. Cybertronians often talked about things that had happened millions of years ago so casually that sometimes it was hard for her to grasp that this didn't happen yesterday.

But they rarely talked about the world. Except to call it a mudball, or organic slop, or filthy little backwater world.

"Special? About Earth?" she echoed and there was a note of surprise in her voice that she wasn't able to hide. The tips of her spoiler pricked up and forward over her shoulders before one side twitched towards him.

Sure, she absolutely thought it was special. The planet itself, the great plates beneath it constantly moving and adjusting. The weather, the seasons, the plants, the animals. Even the cities and the people were constantly adapting, living, and going forward.

Dart hesitated, and then peered over at Thundercracker from under the brim of her helm as she walked along.

"Everything changes here, all the time," she murmured after a moment. The courier's accent snuck past and brushed on every word; her front vowels were lowered and backed rather oddly. "Every day, it's different, every little thing, and it's..."

She caught herself, and quickly trailed off. "Er, I guess that's like other planets, too, though."

"I'm sorry though, I'm not quite sure what you mean by feel, sir."