[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Aces High [Thundercracker and Sundance]

[Sundance]

Week 3, Day 4. High noon
North west Wyoming.


It was a dark cloudy day, for anyone below cloud level. For those above, the bright sea of white vapor was punctuated only by the occasional mountain peak. Sundance skimmed the cloud tops at 400 miles per hour as she headed north west over Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. The bright sun through her beautiful white, blue and orange paint into stark contrast and glinted off her canopy. Every ten minutes, she would ping Omega Outpost with her gps location to check in while she slowly cycled her radar watchful for other aircraft.

Nearly every day for the last two weeks, she’d been out on patrol. In her own mind, she was probably the best equipped Autobot for aerial patrol. She alone of the fliers had combat capability, but she also had range, and in their energon deficiency, she had efficiency as well.

Some part of her, fuelled by the debacle of a training session, was itching for a proper fight. She was angry and frustrated and lost emotionally. This had all been hidden from her friends while she tried and failed to sort out her entire crisis of faith. It was a delicate subject and not really one Sundance was well equipped to deal with. So she was out here, 12,000 feet up, following her gut instinct to just fly. Sundance knew in the back of her mind she was searching for trouble, but she earnestly didn't know what to do if she found it. The little flier wanted to fight, but not to kill, and certainly she wasn't ready to die.

[Thundercracker]

He wasn’t always out here for patrol...

Sometimes Thundercracker needed to get out of that place more than once a day. And this planet was certainly a better sight to see than some of the other places he had been, especially towards the end of the war for Cyberton. As he soared through the sky at 23,000 feet up above sea level, across the skies of what he had been told was the state of Wyoming, he was alone with his thoughts. Any from prying audio sensors, Soundwave being the least of them.

These past days...since his arrival on the planet...had been both disappointing and gratifying. Starscream was still...well, Starscream. But he felt that there was still a sliver of hope, hope found within some others he had met. Those who normally would be passed over by history.

Suddenly he spotted movement down below him, a glint of metal drawing his sight through the clouds. Normally he would ignore such sightings on his off days, but there was something that made him want to go in for a closer look. Maybe it was the shape of the aircraft, maybe it was the blue and orange racing pattern. Regardlesses, he banked down and began to descend, making sure to stay towards the rear as he activated his holomatter avatar, a fully dressed fighter pilot with mask and visor covering his face.

As he got closer he suddenly saw it. That Autobot brand. That damned Autobot brand.

Thundercracker began to increase his speed, centuries of battle experience coming to the forefront of his processor. He had not fought in an air to air combat engagement for decades, but it was all coming back to him just like during the war. With that, he activated his missile guidance system, locking onto the heat signature of the small Autobot jet in front of him.

Turn and burn...

[Sundance]

Every dozen seconds or so, Sundance would ping her radar. She rarely used it continuously as she was always mindful of her energy efficiency. For a couple of minutes, she had been mindful of the blip on her six, approaching from the south east, about two miles higher, and moving a good deal faster than herself. There was nothing unusual there in the flight pattern or radar profile. She was surprised then when the other aircraft started to descend as though on an intercept course with her. The Autobot flier calculated quite rightly that she had been spotted. But by who?

Sundance knew that she sported an almost unique airframe so she would be surprised by some human pilot being curious, just in case she activated her holo avatar. But she also knew that she sported Autobot symbols on her upper surfaces that could have brought attention. Sundance examined the other aircraft, shape and color could have matched one of the Blue Angels, there were very few human jets that wore blue otherwise, but she had a passing familiarity with more than one decepticon seeker in similar colors.

As the aircraft began to accelerate, then her concern amped up as did her readiness. She upped the ping rate of her radar to every second and studied the lay of the land below her under the clouds, ready for a fight just in case.

She took a chance and radioed on a frequency unused by humans but common for Cybertronians. “Identify please.”

[Thundercracker]

The closer Thundercracker got to the other aircraft, the more and more convinced he was that it was another Cybertronian and not some human craft that had accidentally painted on Autobot symbols.

As he came closer he cut back on his speed so that he would not overshoot and angled his approach so that he would slide in on his target’s tail at a distance of about two miles, a perfect setup for a missile shot.

As he banked into position, he noticed that his target had seemed to detect him but made no evasive maneuvers, merely increasing it’s scanning rate.

As a feminine voice spoke on the radio asking for identification he paused. She had no idea who he was. He could shoot her down right here and now, and no one would know who killed her. Hell, they might even blame it on that human terrorist organization MECH. But that was not his way.

There was no need for her to know everything, but he was going to give her a fair chance.

“I’m a Decepticon.”

With that done and out of the way, it was time to get to the messy business at hand. Thundercracker steeled himself before setting his missile homing systems to fully active. If his target had any sort of warning systems installed there would be all sorts of alerts going off informing her that there was a missile attempting to lock onto her heat signature that would be fired as soon as there was a positive confirmation of lock on Thundercracker’s end.

[Sundance]

Sundance only had a few moments to contemplate her options, she could run, and try to spare herself, and her guilt, or attack, maybe die, and maybe win by killing one more time. But today would be like every one passed, she would not run away. Her instinct was to fight, she personally needed a win, and some part barely even a suggestion needed to prove herself one more time. She switched off her Holo-matter avatar almost as quickly as she had switched it on. Now, it would only be a detriment to her survival. 

::To win is to live! Second place is dead last!:: It wasn't much of a battle cry, but it was Sundance's, and it was very much the one she lived by. ::I salute thee!:: She further added. Anyone who took to the skies in combat, whether kin or con was worthy of her respect. Even as she radioed, she acted.

A quick flick of her ailerons had her rolling until she was inverted, and a flick of her elevator had her pitching down to the ground as she dived into the visual cover of the clouds. She had no infra-red lock detection ability, if a missile was homing that wasn't pinging radar, she just assumed heat seeker. The clouds would help a little there if one was ever sent her way. But really, she wasn't even seeking much cover at that, she was simply maneuvering, wanting the seeker to chase her much closer to the ground where she could hopefully out-turn the Decepticon.

[Thundercracker]

So it began.

As his opponent twisted and ducked into the clouds, Thundercracker shut off his holomatter avatar and channeled power to his radar systems, piercing the cloud cover as he throttled back and observed the scene for a brief moment before committing. In his spark, he almost wanted to just throttle up and get out of here, just leave her alone. He sighed as he bit back his reservations. This was war...

Thundercracker throttled up slightly, his radar systems going into full active mode as he stayed above the cloud cover. This Autobot was smart, given what he saw from her smaller size he figured she would be able to out maneuver him instead of outrun him. She was trying to bait him into making a mistake, something that perhaps Coldwind would bite into. No, Thundercracker would not fall for it. Instead, brought his nose heavenward and increased power to gain altitude rapidly before turning over on his back and facing his canopy towards the ground while his radar sweeped the skies.

It would be a shame to kill one with such spunk. This one had a fire in her spark, a defiance that he could respect. He suspected that this one wasn’t a seeker, else she might have recognized him, but he felt that perhaps she could have been one, maybe once this war ended.

[Sundance]

So the seeker wasn't playing chase Sundance thought. She had decided that the Decepticon jet was most likely a seeker. A smart tactic from an experienced soldier. After millions of years of air combat, she had seen most tactics, and this enemy was showing wisdom. No surprise. They could both play safe and run out of fuel before ever firing a single shot, but she really didn't feel like being safe today.

Of course she would still use every advantage she could. Against the average seeker, she was out gunned, out powered, and out armored. Her better agility didn't protect much from boom and zoom tactics. She didn't think much about all the mythology surrounding the Thirteen. But one idea seemed to cling better than others. She was a femme, supposedly a descendant of Solus Prime and thus inheriting an ability to multitask. In Sundance's case, she could walk and talk - or specifically chat and fight. It helped to distract her opponents sometimes. 

As the seeker went inverted, she pulled back up to vertical and poured on her full power. As she angled at the seeker, she fired off a few shots. They were too distant to be accurate or even much damaging.

::No further introductions? No witty repertoire? I'm Sundance vis a vis! Seeker of seekers!:: There was deliberate cheek in her tone as she tried to incite a response. 

[Thundercracker]

Thundercracker banked off to the right so that the lasers passed harmlessly through the air, then twisted through the air attempting to line his nose up on his attacker. So, this was one who liked to chat, figuring it would distract him and cause him to make a fatal mistake. Unfortunately for this one, he had been trinemates with both Skywarp and Starscream.

You quickly learned how to tune out the nonsense and focus on the task at hand.

Shame though for this one, who identified herself as Sundance. He would have bet every shanix he had ever owned that if she had known who he was, she would have taken off down the canyon as fast as she could run. Would he have chased her down if she were to do that? He honestly did not know. For one, he was supposed to eliminate the enemy.

But that did not mean becoming a cackling murderer.

Like some folks he knew.

As the heat seeking lock blared loudly in his processor, he let out an exhale before firing. One of the missiles tucked under his wings separated with the roar of a rocket motor which sent it howling along at breakneck speed towards Sundance, locked onto her heat signature like a bloodhound.

[Sundance]

Nose to nose they flew at each other, high speed high stakes chicken. Sundance was borne for this.

One Aileron went up and it's matched pair went down and Sundance spun on her axis, one full roll a second. Her nose never wavered from her target as his balsters lit up the sky proper, aiming for the seeker. She expected a similar response. Her deliberate spinning was so she could break away when she had to without her enemy being able to guess which way she would pull. 

Her radar, happily pinging away, picked up the missile as soon as it was unleashed. She detected no radar ping of its own so she surmised that it was a heat seeker. She fired a flare, downward relative to her, towards the horizon, east on this occasion. She really hoped it was a heat seeker. Laser guided missiles were much trickier, but thankfully rare.

"I know I'm hot but unloading your heatseeker at a gal you only just met, how impertinent!"

It seemed the seeker was the silent type, focused and serious. Traits she could respect in their current scenario. It didn't stop her from trying any verbal angle though.

[Thundercracker]

Primus it was like sparring Skywarp...

“Shut up and fight.”

As Thundercracker cut back on the throttle and rolled to the side to dodge the incoming lasers, he noticed with both admiration and irritation that the heatseeker seemed to track a flare that his opponent had ejected. The missile tracked onto the flare and exploded harmlessly once it made contact with the object.

One down, three left. She was good. But he was better. Thundercracker pitched his nose up slightly and firewalled the throttle, giving him speed as he would rapidly gain altitude and close the distance. As he would pass overhead, he cut the throttle, relying on his momentum to continue carrying him up and over before going inverted and pitching his nose down towards the earth in a tight split S.

Such a move might have killed a human pilot, but to Thundercracker it was just another day at the office.

As he came out of the dive, and once he had positive lock, he fired another heat seeking missile, leaving him with just two radar guided missiles which were geared more for long range shooting. Not that he wouldn’t use them in this engagement if he needed to, but it was best to use the right tools for the situation.

Time to see if this smart mouth could repeat the same trick twice.

[Sundance]

Sundance grinned to herself. Gotcha she thought.

Her verbal barrage was apparently getting under his wings, and there was every chance he was listening still rather than just wisely shutting down comms. 

10 Points for Gryffindor.

More seriously, the seeker was proving a challenge. No ordinary Decepticon flier was he. Speed clearly favored him and he was no slouch in the agility department either. He had seemingly managed to avoid her fusillade so far and her stockpile of chaff and flares was minimal. Sundance liked a challenge, and this may prove to be her greatest.  

"I thank you for the kind suggestion, good seeker, but I rather enjoy my freedom to wing and sing, so if you want me to shut up, Make Me!"

She was playfully defiant. This was her natural element and despite the phobia of death that came with every aerial battle, she enjoyed herself. Fear and excitement merging to the greatest of highs.

Sundance rolled inverted and spat her last flare into the seeker's flight-path, hoping that he might at least ingest some shrapnel from the missile detonation. She then looped, nose to the ground before coming back up towards the other jet's belly. 

"Did you ever watch or engage in City Circuit Endurance League racing?" Topic change to keep him on edge.

[Thundercracker]

With his second heatseeker going wide and following the flare, Thundercracker realized he had to go about this with more thought and care than he had been using.

He took stock of what he had at his disposal, a rotary cannon in the nose and two rader guided long range missiles. It was more than likely that trying to get into a gunfight with this smart mouthed femme would lead to him getting ventilated with holes, and his long range missiles were not as mobile as the heatseekers, designed for more long range engagements. Besides, he would rather save ammunition in case he got jumped after this...

Suddenly as a pang of discomfort twisted inside his spark, he had an idea...and if he could turn her game around to keep her in the dark about this plan, all the better. Though he would have to pull a page from Starscream’s book, much as he hated to admit it.

“Didn’t have much time for racing before the war, except with my trine.”

With that juicy little tidbit left hanging out there, Thundercracker twisted around so that he was facing towards the fiery little femme, then accelerated to maximum speed so that he would build up enough potential energy in a charge towards her, gun firing from the nose of his alternate mode as he screamed in at top speed, passing Mach One in an instant.

[Sundance]

"A trine huh? Let me guess." Quickly, one plus one plus one plus one was adding up. 

The seeker had not spoken much but mentioned his trine with apparently little emotional weight, either a bluff, or they were still whole. Starscream on Earth was a well known fact. There had been short lived rumours and conspiracies on the web about some experimental jet with selectable radar invisibility. The alternate explanation for disappearing from radar was teleportation. And this seeker, this blue flier with skill, a reluctance to engage in meaningless prattle and now...

Closing in on her at a speed quickly surpassing mach one.

Could it be? If a certain well known trio were here on Earth and whole, no autobot flier would ever be safe. If the old seeker elite Trine were back together, the danger they presented simply multiplied.

"A Trine wouldn't be a politician, a ruffian, and a connoisseur would they?" 

For a brief second, she and the enemy were pointing nose to nose. Her four cannons hammered for that single moment they were on target. Her thoughts were cut short by the blazing agony of return fire hitting home as she dipped down and turned into a clockwise barrel roll.

The nigh unbearable pain seared through her body tearing from her a silent scream as she was hit by a dozen bullets across her nose, canopy, and right side wings. For the sharpest of moments, she saw pure white, and then only blackness.

She was blind.

[Thundercracker]

So, she had figured it out?

Thundercracker bit back a surprised snort as return fire came hammering into him, laser bolts seering his wings and nose as he saw that his own fire caused his opponent to attempt to dive to the ground in a desperate move to escape. Correcting his own trajectory, Thundercracker came in so that he was passing within touching distance of his target. As he arced over her, nearly canopy to canopy, he remembered lessons he had taught himself all those centuries ago, channelling that energy built up within him before releasing.

KABOOM!!!!

Once Thundercracker released that stored up energy, it expanded outward from his corporeal form in a spherical shape with enough force to knock that poor femme halfway back to Cybertron, plus overloading her audio receptors leaving her deaf for a long moment. It was an ability that came with a bit of a high price though, as upon releasing that energy it ended up burning through half of Thundercracker’s energy reserves.

As he expelled the built up energy from his body, Thundercracker pulled back on the throttle, lifted his nose, and dropped every flap available in an attempt to bleed off as much speed as possible before he ran himself into the ground. As the earth got closer and closer, Thundercracker activated his T-cog and changed forms, activating his heel thrusters as he fell closer and closer. He managed to come to a stop just above the ground, the fire from his heel thrusters beginning to scorch the ground before he cut deactivated them and touched the earth again.

After a quick check showing that nothing was broken except for the wounds in his torso and wings, Thundercracker looked up and began looking around for the smart mouthed femme he had been facing.

[Sundance]

Ordinarily being hit with a sonic boom would have been a novel experience for the subsonic flier. This was not ordinary. Let's add insult to injury. 

The shockwave hit her, alighting already damaged nerves. It slammed her around in the air like a hurricane and off-lined her audials. But then turbulence she was used to. For the moments it took her to recover, Thundercracker lacked his wingmates to exploit her temporary weakness. 

But her senses were still simultaneously overwhelmed and deprived. She was blind, deaf save for a slight ringing that absolutely paled in comparison to the almost overwhelming pain in her head. But pain meant she was still alive. 

Sundance had admired Thundercracker from a distance over the millennia. All the reports from survivors, and all the intel made him out to be a supremely skilled flier, arguably the best Cybertron ever had, and he had apparently shown civility even in fighting. Sundance had come to respect him though she had never met him in person. He was even somewhat handsome in the recordings. But he was still the enemy, and a threat to her friends. He was probably going to kill her. She couldn't run, he was faster and better armed, simply more powerful. She could not call for backup because then he might kill her friends too. 

That's what she would have thought but she wasn't thinking at all. She wasn't able to focus through the pain with some zen like focus. 

With four millions years of combat under her wings, and half again spent racing, knowledge and skill and plain simple talent had merged somewhat into pure instinct. Deprived of sight and still reeling from the pain, she instead acted on radar. Second place was dead last, to win was to live, and right now she was fighting for survival. The fire of her spark burned hot enough to dance with suns.

Sundance completed the roll, arced toward the ground and then completed a large loop. She had yet to throttle back at all. She came in low, hot and fast, aimed and fired three of her four canons at Thundercracker.

Why had he transformed? Why was he standing still? Sundance didn't even think about it.