[ti]Flashback[/ti]Busted and Buried [Sunstreaker, Avalanche]

[Avalanche]

Memories, given long enough, degraded into stories. Once upon a time... once upon a time, there had been a skyline instead of a horizon. A city, deep-rooted in the caverns and subterranean spaces of Cybertron, reaching with a million glittering fingers towards the stars above and challenging the night sky with its own carpet of lights.

Now that was just a story. But it was a story that the landscape told; what had once been orderly and beautiful was now broken and chaotic, a forest of fallen giants and standing survivors, their silver sides blackened by fire and pitted by ordinance as the tide of war pushed back and forth. It had given itself over to ugly, brutal battles fought on a dozen ever-shifting levels, striking downwards, ambushing upwards, tunnels, canyons and glittering heaps of broken metal merging together into one chaotic tangle that read, simply and plainly, Once this place was great, and now it is not.

Maybe it could be again, one day. Privately, Avalanche was beginning to doubt it.

Her platoon were nestled in an open chamber that had once, long ago, hosted a business faire. Here and there, amongst the rubble, they'd unearthed styluses that were still marked with the colourful logos of organisations that were long consumed by the dreary, all-consuming factories of war. Thick temporary props supported the roof, newly bracing the chamber against the possibility of collapse further up the stack. Mechs and femmes milled around, jostling for spaces in the demolished office spaces leading off from the primary hall, playing games of chance and wagering chunks of their rations.

"Stability of the structure is within tolerances," offered the mech standing beside her, his gaze following the way her optics lingered on the metal beams wedged against possible collapse points. He was a dusty industrial yellow and black, thick tracks dominating his leg structures, the two conical halves of a single drill mounted down the length of his forearms. "I'd advise further efforts to focus on the access to level two."

"Thanks, Drillbit," Avalanche acknowledged dryly. "Where would I be without you?"

"Still propping the ceiling to this staging area, I would estimate."

He wasn't wrong. Avalanche trusted the other mecha, rather more than her own rough and ready estimates when it came to the chamber's structural integrity, but she couldn't help but picture just how easily her platoon could be devastated if the tower collapsed in on itself atop them, crushing them all to rubble.

You've dealt with that. Move on to the next problem.

The next problem, which was... she sighed, rubbing the side of her helm with one squared off fingertip as she saw an unfamiliar femme being escorted into the camp, a grounder clad in bright yellow. She was down in numbers already, her platoon down to thirty one. Still within bracket, but each solider lost hurt. It had been forever since she'd had any reinforcements assigned to her, and when Command had gotten around to it, it was to offload a problem on her.

Avalanche's ring-shaped optics met the other femme's across the crowded space, and she gave a single beckoning gesture, then turned. Her body was mostly black and white, hatched warning patterns down her flanks, thick tracks marking her boots and up her back to punch through her shoulder guards. The heavy wedge of a bulldozer blade made her altmode clear. She was a massive figure, built like an industrial compactor, and she had to duck her helm to make her way into what had once been a conference room.

By virtue of several surviving chairs and an intact table, it was the current nerve centre of her operation. Moving over to the head of the table, she rested one heavy hand on the back of a chair but didn't sit down, watching the yellow-clad femme approach.

"Clear out," she said succinctly to Drillbit. "And make sure anyone eavesdropping doesn't make it too obvious, for Solus's sake."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The digger saluted and made himself scarce, making room for the femme - Sunstreaker, according to the brief - to enter the room. Avalanche's hot orange gaze lingered on her faceplate.

"Sunstreaker. Welcome to the wreckage. I am First Lieutenant Avalanche."

[Sunstreaker]

The nature and scope of her punishment had only dawned on Sunstreaker during transit, not to mention the ramifications of the actions that had warranted it. It had been unbearably quiet on the ride over. She'd hardly been in a mood to talk following her tumultuous meeting with Prowl, but even then, she would've vastly preferred the companionship of her twin and squad to the unendurable silence, her only partner in conversation being the occasional stray thought. 

They were gone because of her, and she was alone. If she'd been a little less opportunistic... less brash... less arrogant.... if, if, if.

Too many Ifs for Sunstreaker to be alone with. She'd kept her comms quiet and the radio silent on the drive over. As maddening as it was, the silence was about the only thing she could focus on at this point. It was a constant reminder of all that was lost to her. That, and thoughts of guilt intermingled with thoughts of atonement.

As she approached what was most likely the saddest building in the aft-end of Cybertron, Sunstreaker tried to turn her thoughts toward more productive ends. It had been quite a while since she'd actually been posted to the front, but she hadn't forgotten what it was like to live on it. Hell, it was a vacation compared to trying to rough it without a supply line, a supply line being the only perk of being trenchbound.

Above all though, she needed a vent. Nothing in this universe would save the next Con who wandered into her sights. Or the next ten. Or the next thousand. It was all her fault after all, but those who inflicted the injury had more than their share of hell to pay still.

Sunstreaker shifted forms in an uncharacteristically mundane fashion as she approached the edges of the camp. No flips, no rolls, no finesse; she wasn't in the right headspace for showing off, as it were. She gave little attention the camp personnel that greeted her, aside from shoving the pad containing her orders over to them. A quick read was had, and they then took the lead in front of her. After crunching what she could only assume to be old business cards beneath her pedes, she finally caught sight of the platoon commander. Massive femme, used to work in construction from the markings. And the size. As she was beckoned to, Sunstreaker obliged, diverting from her escort to follow the boss-femme herself.

She had a feeling she needed to find a box to stand on, otherwise this would be a very awkward conversation for her.

"Sunstreaker. Welcome to the wreckage. I am First Lieutenant Avalanche."

Her gaze was caught by the rest of the room first, before quickly tilting up towards the optics of the First Lt. Sunstreaker's gaze was nothing but neutral, despite the difference in stature, and the ever-obvious reasons for her current assignment.

"Lieutenant..." she began, snapping off a brief salute to her superior officer. "I'm-" Sergeant....

No. You can't say that part anymore. Your rank is long gone, you fool.

And don't insult the femme's base, either. Despite how much of a heap it is.

Anyone watching would've been able to see the moment when that weight on Sunstreaker's shoulders went and got heavier.

"...well, you know already. Reporting in."

[Avalanche]

The first thing to know about Sunstreaker was that she had had potential. The second thing was that she had made a mistake that had gotten those under her command killed. The third thing to know was how that experience had changed her, and the fourth was what she would do now. Avalanche knew the first two, in skeletal detail. The latter two, however, remained unknown. More than anything else, those were the things she needed to find out.

The big femme's optics narrowed thoughtfully at Sunstreaker's interrupted greeting; the wound was raw, and she wasn't accustomed to her new position yet. Not particularly surprising. Losing those you commanded hurt, and anyone that wasn't damaged by it would have been worthless to her as a soldier anyway.

"Sunstreaker." Better to state the femme's name for the record, just in case some hideously implausible mishap had taken place and this wasn't the one she'd been expecting to receive. "We're currently in a lull, but that can change without warning. If we're interrupted during this conversation, if the alarm sounds, form up on Sergeant Drillbit - the one that was in here just before you - and he will make use of you. Defensive actions only, and stick close. Understood?"

The very last thing she wanted, in case an emergency or ambush did come, was a mecha she didn't know running around trying to figure out where to be and what to do. And Avalanche was always expecting the next attack.

"I'll tell you now, I don't have a lot of information on your career to this point, and what I do have is dominated by recent events." They both knew what that meant. 

"I want to hear about your skillset. Altmode. Preferred range of engagement. Combat style. Energon intake class. What expendable ammunition you take, and how much you carry on-board. Any pre-existing injuries that affect your performance. Everything that will tell me how to make the best use of you as a soldier in my unit. Then we'll get into why you're here."

[Sunstreaker]

Defensive actions only.

Words Sunstreaker seldom heard, given her attitude and past assignments. She worked best when pressing the attack as fast as possible, but now more than ever, she didn't have grounds to object. Her icy optics kept themselves fixed on Avalanche however, and her posture betrayed no hint of frustration or objection. Sunstreaker nodded plainly, parroting the lieutenant's words. "Understood."

Aside from the boss herself, Sunstreaker hadn't really had time to commit names to appearances. Literally anybot here could've been Drillbit, although judging by the name, she had a feeling she'd be able to pick them out in a crowd. Hopefully.

Recent events...

The mere mention of the Helex incident was enough to crack Sunstreaker's orderly façade. As the words struck her audials, she felt herself reflexively tighten. Denta gritted, fists clenched. She couldn't even bear to meet the femme's optics for a brief second, turning her head to take a moment to process the bubbling anger before refocusing. It was a visibly difficult endeavor, but she managed to rebuild her composure after nearly losing it.

Get used to it, loser. You earned this.

The other half of Avalanche's statement made at least a little more sense to the ex-sergeant. Most of her AAR's were kept secure after filing. No way some random CO out in the wastes would've gotten her servos on her whole file. But luckily, Sunstreaker was one of Sunstreaker's favorite subjects. And also a welcome one, before she instinctively put a hole in the last table in the entire complex.

...about your skillset.

Her mind just about latched on to those words, and every subsequent word, needing the distraction desperately. It was time for the pitch, at long last. She pressed the tips of her servos on her right hand into the palm of her left, giving them all a decent crack, shooting Ava a much more determined look.

"Rapid assault," she began. "Hitting the enemy where they're weakest, hard and fast, retreating 'fore they have time to punish the blow."

She felt a bit of pride saying that. She felt better saying it, too. To answer her new CO's next question, Sunstreaker hunched over, before launching herself up in a backflip, only catching herself in the air with an extended servo planted groundward. After holding the pose for a hot second, she eased herself to the ground as she shifted forms. She was then a sleek, powerful sports car, giving Ava a brief rev of her engine to seal the deal.

"Nothing special." Liar. "You can imagine though, I'm not the best at sucking up shots with a mode like this. I ain't no coward, but I prefer a bit of untouchability."

Shink!

A pair of medium-grade blaster rifles shifted into existence on the sides of Sunstreaker's form, each sprouting a square muzzle and a set of red-tinted laser sights. "Guns," obviously. "Medium range on most days; long on a good one." Pending the brief demonstration, both blasters retreated back into Sunstreaker's form with a brief metallic crescendo. She shifted forms herself, though less flashy than initially, coming to regard Ava once more at her full height.

She raised a clenched fist up for display, projecting one of her Suncutters from her forearm. The energy blade produced a dull hum for several seconds for closer observation, before being swiftly switched off. "And those, for very bad days."

The still-raised fist then shifted into one of her blaster rifles, though Sunstreaker drew attention to the second, smaller barrel mounted beneath it. She snagged the explosive munition that tumbled out of the bottom of the weapon as she slid back the main covering. Sunstreaker popped it up in the air with her thumb, before grabbing it out of the air for Ava to get a better look at. "For expendables, I carry six of these little beauties. High-pressure explosive rounds, easy enough to resupply."

With a quick smack, Sunstreaker slammed the round back into its launcher, her arm shifting back to root mode shortly after.

And there were the most show-boaty bits Sunstreaker could think of. They were rapidly approaching the Incident, which she wasn't eagerly anticipating. Nevertheless, she tucked her servos behind her back and resigned herself to fate.

"I won't be springing a leak out in the middle of a fight, if you're worried. Never had an injury I couldn't walk away from... and I'm not picky about my Energon, either."

Her attention had begun to drift away from Ava as the inevitable approached, though Sunny was able to muster one last, proud declaration.

"I'll put it simply, boss. You sic me on a target, no matter how big, or how remote, and I'll hit it, and get you the after action before the Cons have a chance to whine about it..."

...why you're here.

That was every question answered save for the turbo-elephant in the room, having already stepped on what was left of the bravado in her tone. She closed her optics, and braced for it.

"Just don't ask me to lead anybody."

[Avalanche]

First impressions were important.

That went both ways, of course; right now, Sunstreaker would be figuring out what kind of commanding officer she was likely to be, her style, her personality, how much latitude the femme would get and what she could get away with. It was the age-old calculation that every soldier had to make when faced with an unknown superior.

What was Sunstreaker seeing, with those icy blue optics? Likely someone of lower caste, someone hard and blunt and without much tolerance for screwing around.

Which was more or less accurate.

That was one half of the equation. The other half was what the femme was trying to portray, what image she wanted imprinted on her new officer. And that - Avalanche repressed the urge to rub two fingers against her forehead in exasperation - was a backflip and handstand.

The massive femme crossed her arms across her chest, underslung pistons gleaming in their housings. Her field was relatively restrained, but nonetheless, her chassis language didn't hide the fact that she was less than impressed by the sudden indoor gymnastics. Sunstreaker was showing herself off in a display somewhere between an enthusiastic job interview and a product launch.

It could be sheer ego. It could also just be an over-prepared show put on by someone anxious to impress. Time would tell. No need to come down too hard on her, not yet. Especially when every reference to her previous squad visibly hammered her.

Alright. Discard the flash, and what was left?

"Mid-range combatant, low durability, high manoeuvrability. No special considerations for energon." Not like Avalanche, whose energon consumption was a lot higher than most of her troops. "You'll speak with the quartermaster later, make sure we have the right calibre of explosive rounds for your underslung weapons. Hypo will give you a checkup, get your baseline functional state on record."

Avalanche pulled out the chair at the head of the table and settled into it, the alloy creaking as it took up her multi-tonne weight. Her optics flicked up to Sunstreakers, hot orange meeting cold blue, and she nodded to another chair.

"Next time you report to me, you can skip the showboating. Now. Platoon breaks down into one heavy squad of sixteen, and two light flankers of seven each. You'll be with squad Turbofox." She paused, then rolled her optics. "I didn't name it. Defensively, you'll be making lightning strikes as spoilers, and raining ranged fire from flanking positions while the heavy squad holds the ground. Offensively, raiding, scouting, making a big distraction as the heavy squad moves to engage. Either way, stick with your squad and don't get separated. In time, you'll get more autonomy, but you're going to have to earn that from your Sergeant."

Boss, huh. That was a bit of informality that Avalanche didn't really mind; Sunstreaker wouldn't be the only one that called her that. In truth, she'd worked with show-offs before, and they weren't always that bad once you got to know them. Consider that the first bit of latitude that the yellow femme would get, and see how she worked from there.

Now for the core of the matter.

"Tell me about Helex."

[Sunstreaker]

...showboating.

Showboating. Showboating?

Sunstreaker was insulted. That? That was a flip. One flip. Hell, Sunny had felt like flipping just because she felt good talking about herself. If Avalanche had truly thought one measly flip counted as showboating, using the metric that was Sunstreaker, she'd measured dead wrong. If the Lieutenant really wanted actual showboating from her newest ground-pounder, she wouldn't need to wait very long, because--

...

No.

She'd laid down the law right on the spot, and with little more than a verbal slap on the wrist. It was generous, and Sunstreaker had served under far less friendly CO's in her day. The urge to pull off a triple full backflip from the tallest spot in the camp was heavy and intense, but... it would have to subside, for now. She made herself a promise, after all.


...squad Turbofox.

The name was met with a blink. Who the hell names a squad 'Turbofox'?

"I didn't name it."

Oh good, Sunstreaker thought. Her new boss wasn't a complete tool. She listened along quietly as Avalanche outlined her duties on the battlefield, and was pleased that her little demonstration hadn't been ignored. Most new CO's would just slap her in a trench somewhere, so she couldn't complain when her marching orders were downright agreeable with her skill set. She could care less about having to report to some no-name Sergeant. It had recently been made abundantly clear that Sunstreaker's days of operational autonomy were long gone.

"...about Helex."

Slag, here we go. The first debriefing had been pleasant like pulling a knife out of her leg. It had been a few weeks since then, but Sunstreaker wasn't expecting this time to be any less painful.

The femme steeled herself as best she could, tucking her servos behind her back as she finally began.

"..."

Damn it...

It still hurt.

"We were dispatched far behind their lines, all nine of us. Our job was to pick off recon patrols, supply convoys, fuel depots, comms arrays... strategic targets in general, all with minimal support."

They were the best, goddammit. They were commandos, real ones. Not like those whiners in the Wreckers. Plus, they didn't have some dorky catchphrase to blurt out whenever they scored a hit on a Con.

"We were set to put the boots to an important refueling station in Helex, right before a major 'Con armor division was set to roll in and punch through the line. Place was guarded, but but awful busy."

They could've done it.

"We had orders come down for us to pull out ahead of the Con advance, right as we commenced the operation. Didn't get much reason as to why, aside from reinforcing the line at Bitrex, then redeploying after."

They'd done more with less.

"I was confident that we could disable security and set a few charges, first; Con armor wasn't supposed to roll through for another two hours."

Sunstreaker unfurled her arms, her form stiffening even more.

"I wanted to hit it, and my... they agreed with me." To their detriment.

"So... we got in, and made it to the first demo point. Before we can plant anything though, a full Con aerial assault wing turns up and starts blowing us to hell."

Her fists clenched again.

"It was an ambush, one command had known about. The Cons had broken our encryption by then, but we didn't want to let them know we'd done the same. Command tried to pull us out quietly so we wouldn't tip Con signal intelligence off, banking on the hope that I'd listen to orders not to hit a big, vulnerable target."

And then it was a rout.

"We had three fatalities, and four casualties. We retreated, got medevac... and then I went an got myself demoted."

The pain was dull, but still pervasive.

[Avalanche]

No protests, no 'I can do better', no demanding a different role. Good. From what little Sunstreaker's records had covered, she was a capable femme with skills to offer. The visible flicker of incredulity at 'Squad Turbofox' didn't count against her one bit either. However, she had made an error in judgement bad enough to get demoted with the swift efficiency of someone being kicked off a skybridge, and Avalanche needed to know exactly how and why.

So she listened, carefully, and didn't interrupt.

Strike team of nine. Good unit strength for high impact, high autonomy, low resource expenditure. Clearly Sunstreaker had had some chops to be allowed to command a unit that would largely operate on a long leash, with minimal direction and oversight.

So they'd been about to sabotage a refuelling station... Sunstreaker didn't specify who'd set that up, whether it was a command directive or her own initiative. In Avalanche's experience, when a squad came up with their own objective, they were usually more hungry to see it through. Something to check. No doubt Sunstreaker had been playing the risk to her team - and the weight of defying orders - off against the damage a fully fuelled armour column would have done.

Would the team have agitated to do the job regardless if Sunstreaker had shut the conversation down? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Avalanche's optics narrowed, the burning orange vivid against her grey faceplate and black helm armour. A trap, laid especially for them, one Command had ordered them not to walk into. Yes, now she could see why Sunstreaker had been ripped to shreds in the after action report. Three dead, four wounded, leaving only two intact survivors. Those were not good percentages, however you looked at it. Had Sunstreaker been one of the wounded, or had she gotten out clean? If she'd survived without taking any notable damage, that would have counted against her too, as ridiculous as that was.

Command would have no doubt taken the opportunity to hammer their chosen lessons into her, if they'd taken time to say anything other than how badly she'd screwed up. But now this femme was part of Avalanche's platoon, and Avalanche had her own opinions on the lessons to take from that mess.

"You're hurting over the loss of your troops. Good. Any mecha that wasn't, I wouldn't trust them in my unit as far as they could throw me. Which wouldn't be far." Avalanche tapped her blunt fingers slowly against the table, with a dull metallic sound at each impact. "Was it a command objective to sabotage the fuel refinery, or your own initiative? How badly were you damaged during the ambush and evac?"

Avalanche shifted her weight forward a little, with another long creaking groan from her chair. "I want to hear what could have been done differently to avoid what happened to your squad. Don't bother saying that you could have just obeyed orders; Command will have been all over that. What else? What preparations could have been made - not just from you - to produce a different outcome? What attitudes and beliefs, if changed, would have produced a better result?"

Her gaze met the other femme's, holding there. "I'm not raking you over these wounds for fun. I want to know what you've been thinking, and what you think now, about situations like this. Because you'll have been over it a thousand times in your processor since it happened, and I want to hear the results."

[Sunstreaker]

"You're hurting over the loss of your troops. Good."

That last word alone made her want to climb up there and rip Avalanche's head off. Sunstreaker's sudden violent urge was only made manifest through an almost imperceptible twitch of her optics, though her CO was luckily diplomatic enough to smooth over such a cutting remark before the fireworks began. Fair point, the rebellious ex-Sergeant thought to herself. It had been awful smart of her to turn it around as a compliment, although Sunstreaker didn't think of it that way. The pain made her wonder whether or not she cared too much.

The golden Autobot folded her arms together as her boss commenced with round three of questioning."We get handed lists, right before we slip behind the Con lines." Lists, however, perhaps wasn't the best description of the intel packets they received before missions, but it was still suitable for a summary. "They're full of possible targets command wants us to hit, but the actual order in which we hit them is up to us to decide. Makes it harder for the Cons to follow the pattern; forces them to deploy more resources over a wider area to catch us, instead of just dumping them right where they know we'll be." Of course, as both femmes were no doubt aware, that strategy couldn't stop someone absolutely from finding the pattern in the end.

"The refinery was at the end of the list. Had to hit it right before the Cons rolled through, otherwise they'd get the chance to fix it if we struck too early." It was easy to fix a damaged fuel depot, provided with ample time and resources. But, when you had to fix a depot with about a thousand disgruntled Con tanks just hanging around burning Energon? That was a logistical nightmare.

Sunstreaker's optics drifted down as Avalanche asked about her wounds. She unrolled her left arm as prompted by the question, drawing attention to the rather fresh-looking coloring around her elbow, drawing a digit across its surface to accentuate the difference. "Right here. Got sprayed with shrapnel, but my arm soaked up the worst of it." Judging from the pattern of discoloration, it was likely that the femme's arm had been hanging on by a few threads, and what's more, the damage had been just above the joint itself, instead of taking the easy way through the joint itself.

With a few flexes of her digits, Sunstreaker brought her arm back up to sit snugly with its twin. She still felt the pain from the memory, but she'd had worse before.

Ava was definitely astute, she had to give her that. Obeying orders was just about the only thing that command had tried to drill into her during debriefing. They'd said other things of course, but that just happened to be what Sunstreaker had fixated on. It was a damn good question, though. Aside from the obvious, Sunny hadn't contemplated what else she could've done to piss command off further by actually accomplishing her mission.

No attitude or belief could stop an HE missile, as far as she was aware. But, Sunstreaker still put some thought into it. She stepped forward, leaning in to plant her fists on the table as she did the mental gymnastics. Different outcome. She took note of the language. Avalanche wasn't asking what she could've done to complete the mission per se, just what she could've done to avoid going to three funerals. A good distinction.

It wasn't easy, though. She decided to run through things aloud.

"I split the squad and put a fireteam out on watch, in case any Cons showed up. They did, of course... but we'd been expecting a patrol, not an ambush." If they hadn't done that, they've definitely been slagged before they could run. "We bolted right after the attack began. Could'a stuck around in the refinery and fought them off, though. I would'a wagered the Cons weren't eager to blow up their own fuel depot, but we weren't prepped for a siege..."

They might've taken down their share of Cons had they stayed, but then they'd definitely be all dead.

Sunstreaker paused before continuing, hanging her head low. She'd been dancing around the main issue here, and Avalanche deserved to know. "...we should've just left it. Come back for it another day." Sure, stopping the cons before their advance would've been nice, but they could just as easily have struck after they passed through, which would've stranded them on the front.

"But I wanted it," she growled, the hunger in her voice more than audible. Sunstreaker craned her head up, shooting Avalanche a dangerously confident look, denta gritted. "I told them I wanted it and they went along!" Because they trusted her as a leader.

She shook her head. "But that's not what got me demoted. I told him. I told Prowl," she continued, her voice gradually losing more of its foundation as she went. "I told him I didn't do it to save lives at the front. No."

"I did it for me." A fist found itself slammed against her chest to punctuate the 'me', her tone seething with self-hatred and vitriol. "I sent three good Autobots to their deaths and nearly got my twin slagged to prove that I was the best goddamn squad leader Primus ever blessed this planet with!!!"

A long pause floated through the room as the femme let her head hang back down, hands trembling, unable to spend the energy necessary to sustain the outburst of grief and self-loathing. "And I don't give a damn how many times you rake me about it... bring it up a thousand times... read me their obituaries... take me to their goddamn graves."

Sunstreaker looked back up. "I don't care. Just remind me that I can't be that way anymore..."

That, was what had been running through her processer a thousand times since then.

[Avalanche]

Avalanche watched Sunstreaker closely, her optics slightly narrowed by straight-edged shutters. There was a tiny flicker in her field, a level of control over her expression which seemed out of place with the femme's general extroverted displays of emotion: she could shut down her reactions when she wanted to. That was interesting, and worth remembering.

Thick fingers interwoven before her, the black-armoured femme listened. A target list made a good compromise between a rigid set of orders and the complete chaos that'd result if they were simply thrown behind enemy lines and told to make a mess. By the same token, however, there'd be criteria drawn up to create that list, and the more targets on it that were hit, the clearer those criteria would be - and the more predictable the remaining targets - to the enemy.

The fuel refinery was the final entry on their target list. Avalanche's lips quirked into the ghost of a grimace. Even without orders to withdraw, that would have been a target with a high chance of turning into an ambush. Why had Sunstreaker and her team gone for it, then?

The big femme's optics turned towards Sunstreaker's arm as the former commando drew a digit across it, highlighting fresh plating. Avalanche was no medic, but she'd seen her share of wounds, and that looked like it had been a nasty one. She hated the way that her own mind worked at times, but coming back damaged would have played in Sunstreaker's favour when it came to how hard she got canned afterwards. One thing crossed off her own list of things to check.

And then, Sunstreaker took a long pause for thought. Good. Avalanche hadn't asked her questions lightly, and taking them seriously was the absolute-minimum required to come up with any answer that was halfway satisfactory.

Item one on Sunstreaker's list of alternate actions: turn the raid into a suicide mission. No doubt the golden femme anticipated the firm negative that swelled in her new commander's field; she didn't dwell on that.

Item two: obey orders.

Here, Avalanche was perhaps guilty of being oblique. If she'd baldly asked what Sunstreaker should have done instead, the automatic response hammered into her by Command would have been 'obey orders', and little more. Asking her to talk about everything she could have done except that... well, she wasn't that surprised when Sunstreaker approached the topic anyway, but from a more useful angle than just failing to obey military hierarchy.

The content of Sunstreaker's confession, though... was not good. At all.

If she took what the femme said at face value, it was ego. Pure, unchecked ego. She'd disobeyed orders to withdraw because she'd wanted to be the best around, and led her team into the jaws of an entirely predictable ambush. On the one hand, Sunstreaker's manner of describing it all reeked of self-flagellation, of describing the entire mess in the worst possible way out of guilt. But on the other hand, when a mecha told you baldly that their judgement wasn't to be trusted, it was wise to bear that in consideration.

"That's enough." The words were firm and blunt, and her field brooked no back-talk. "I'm not asking you about this so you can tell me you were the most selfish, egotistical squad leader in commando history. Death is a teacher for those that get to live, and there are lessons to be learned here."

She leant forward a little, flattening her hands against the table. "At the time the command was given, what could have changed? Command could have told you about the broken encryption in the clear. That would have cost more than three lives; they did the right thing keeping it back. They could have given a more plausible withdrawal order, but they shouldn't have to. At that point, they did what they could. So remove Command from consideration for now.

"Your squad knew what you knew. You'd hit too many targets on that list, and that set up a pattern. The further you got down it, the more likely you were to walk into a trap. You had orders to withdraw, and every reason to think that final location could be an ambush. They should have contradicted your orders to go on. You need to think about why they didn't. Don't just chalk it up to loyalty. My troops are loyal, and they will tell me when I'm making a mistake as I'm making it. Whether it was bravado, a dislike in being the first one to back down or the way the expectations of squad were set up, something broke down and no one said the obvious. Think about how that could be fixed.

"As for you. You say it was nothing but wanting to be the best? I don't believe you. On some level, you were weighing the risk to your team against the damage an armour column could do. But you need to keep in mind that the war isn't yours to prosecute alone. You do as much damage as you have opportunity, but at the end of the day, you keep your people alive as best you can. You didn't believe you could really screw up, and that is where your ego did the damage. You need to know your limits, Sunstreaker, and while you've gotten your fingers burned on leadership, I don't see much sign you've applied it to your own capabilities elsewhere. You walked in here to tell me you can do damn near anything, solo."

Avalanche thrust a finger towards her. "You've got five days to write up a list of five circumstances that would get you to back off from an ordered mission. Not just you, but situations that would have you advise your sergeant to pull back, too. And so you don't write something ridiculous like 'one on one with Trypticon', you'll include the tipping point between when you'd go forward, and when you'd retreat."

The broadly built femme shook her helm, glancing out of the conference room through the dusty glass at a brief disturbance outside, before returning her attention to Sunstreaker. "You should have had a list of code words, set up with your handler before you left, that could be used in the clear without tipping your hand. At the absolute minimum, you should have had an emergency bug-out phrase they could have used in that last communication that'd have gotten you to back out. Your handler Command-side should have set that up with you, but if they didn't, you should have made sure of it, because it's your aft and the afts of those under you that get burned. This is what I want to hear from you when we talk about this, you understand me? Practical means to stop this happening again."

[Sunstreaker]

She felt empty now, but in a good way. Sunstreaker had felt like a bottle, about to burst open from one too many cracks in her exterior, unable to keep holding everything inside when it had grown to be so much. The cracks remained, but that pressure, that volatility, had flooded out of her system for the moment. No matter the metaphor, the energy to self-loathe and lament was gone. Good too, since Sunstreaker didn't know how much she had left in her. Perhaps she ought to find an outlet for all that raw emotion.

Avalanche had decided to cut in at just the right moment. Sunny let her shoulders drop, relaxing her posture after having stood rigid for a few solid minutes. She withdrew her hands from the table, and once more adopted a comparatively more-professional stance, having very much needed to compose herself. Primus she wanted to shoot something right now, though.

As her boss commenced with the speech, Sunny had to give her credit where it was due. Having initially known nothing about her new CO, other than her name was Avalanche, she had developed a few preconceptions about how this meeting was supposed to do. Hell, Sunstreaker had been expecting a very unrefined suck it up and fall in line routine when she spilled her story after arrival. What she got, and was currently getting, couldn't have been farther from her prediction.

Avalanche was veritably cutting through her, not with a knife or other crude instrument, but with the care and incisiveness of a scalpel, and she was taking her time doing it. Sunstreaker had no grounds to say that it wasn't painful. It hurt a lot actually, but after such an emotionally charged disclosure, she had neither the desire nor the energy to refute her. Hell, trying to combat any part of her argument would just get the blade pushed in, further. The longer Ava went on the more it felt like she was being bled, but deep down, she knew she needed to hear it more than anything.

Optics widening as a finger was leveled at her, Sunstreaker processed the request. Five things? she thought. Yeah. Yeah, I could do that. That's only like... one per day. Coming up with situations that lined up with what Ava had described would still be tricky however, since almost none had immediately come to Sunstreaker as she first thought on it. Barring that last catastrophic failure, her record was almost spotless. Complaints didn't count as spots. What she really needed to do however, was to factor in Avalanche's earlier criticism.

Know your limits.

Sunny hadn't known the meaning of the word, until she'd been painfully informed. But now more than ever, she knew. Her team was gone, and this was her last chance. If she was going to do this, she needed to commit. Before she could commit however, her optics followed Ava's as she turned to face the direction of an apparent kerfuffle outside somewhere. Assuming it to be nothing important for the moment, both femmes then found their gazes linked once more.

"Yes," she answered, her tone clear and even. "I understand."

Anything to stop it from happening again.

[Avalanche]

Part of being a good soldier was knowing when to stop punching. Or shooting, whatever; the point was that continuing to focus attacks on a target when you'd already done enough was the mark of an amateur. You dealt with what was in front of you, fast and decisively, and then you moved on.

Sunstreaker had heard enough. The frantic, self-destructive energy that had underlain her confession like a bared electrical conduit had dissipated, at least for now, and she seemed like the kind of femme to listen to reason. That was good. Again, it would take time to see whether she had truly listened and made an effort to do things differently - for a race whose entire essence was transformation, most mecha were damn slow to change - but the ball was in her court now.

Time, then, to ease off on the pressure a bit. But not too quickly, not here. Shifting the message now would muddle the things she'd already said. There needed to be a clean break between one and the other.

"Come with me."

Avalanche pushed herself up from the chair and crossed the room to the door, her pedes producing little tremors through the floor with each fall. Pa-thunk. Pa-thunk. Stealthy, she was not.

Emerging into the comparatively open space of the former conference hall, she picked up a tall, dark grey slab of armour plating whose angled sides betrayed its nature as a bulldozer blade, and hooked it onto her back with the clunk of clamps engaging. Off to one side, the yellow and black figure of Drillbit caught her optic, then glanced at Sunstreaker. Avalanche tilted her head slightly in return.

The communication that flashed between them was unspoken, but no less tangible, and likely not hard for Sunstreaker to decode.

What do you make of her?

We'll see.

Aloud, she said simply, "We're heading out to the perimeter. Keep watch."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Avalanche's long strides carried her across the chamber, navigating around a series of barricades set up to protect the main entrance. Glancing back once to ensure Sunstreaker was following her, she turned down a darkened corridor, once littered with debris that had now been swept against the walls to leave the path clear.

"That was Platoon Sergeant Drillbit. He's my second. Below him, you'll be reporting to Sergeant Latch. She's the squad leader for Turbofox."

The front of the building had been made up of elegant glass panels, once. Now they were cracked and crazed, some shattered, some missing, but the metal grid that had supported them remained. Outside, where daylight could have once reigned, there were only more dimly lit towers and crumpled heaps of debris, an uneven ceiling far overhead. They were still several levels underground, and the weight above was tangible.

Avalanche's orange optics were bright in the semi-dark. "Got any ideas about why you were assigned to my squad specifically, Sunstreaker?"

[Sunstreaker]

To say that she was relieved about how Avalanche had chosen to divert the topic of discussion would've been a gross understatement. It would take a healthy share of time for Sunstreaker to digest the various pointed words that had been etched into her in the past five minutes, however. The weight behind Avalanche's rhetoric would sit heavy, she felt, for as long as she was able to remember it. For once, Sunstreaker had been dealt a lecture she felt she needed to sit through. She wouldn't do them both a disservice by brushing it off and forgetting it.

Wordlessly, Sunstreaker obliged her boss and quickly fell in line behind her as was requested. Though almost invisible to the naked optic, she felt as if she were being bounced a nanometer higher than usual as she walked, no doubt Avalanche's heavy footfalls playing a role.

Her optics lingered as Avalanche hooked the massive chunk of metal to her back, just feeling heavier having to contemplate how heavy the blade-shovel was. It also made Sunny feel a bit of relief about not having to hoof it with an exterior arsenal. 

Judging by the drillbits on one of the nearby mechs, she assumed she was looking at the aforementioned Drillbit, an assumption made more definite as Sunstreaker watched the unspoken language between CO and XO. She continued to lightly bounce along behind Avalanche, but not before turning her chin up at Drillbit, one brow raised inquisitively.

So they were going out to the perimeter, then? She wasn't thrilled, but at least it wasn't another grilling. Sunstreaker knew full well that she wasn't going to run up a hill, plant the Autobot flag, and sock a Decepticon in the jaw with a posting like this. Nope, it was going to be artillery at sunrise, and sniper fire at sunset.

Still following the boss-femme close behind, Sunstreaker silently absorbed her standing orders. Least she was meeting new faces, in all this. Her boss's next question perplexed the hot-shot grounder to a slight degree. She could hazard a guess, but lacked the information to cement it firmly.

So, she spoke plainly.

"You're an unpopular CO with the higher ups, because I know they wouldn't send someone like me out on vacation after what I pulled." No doubt the rest of her squad had been pulled into more model brigades, by now. She was fine with her punishment, but the rest of them had earned better postings.

"I know you're honest, and you don't dance around the point to save other people's egos. More than a few 'Bots up at the big table who'd just prefer another yesman to someone like you." It was as good of a compliment that Sunny could muster at this point, leaving her to hope that it wouldn't elicit an unfavorable reaction.

[Avalanche]

Drillbit nodded at Sunstreaker as she met his gaze. His facial design was rather inexpressive, with a solid yellow visor over a masked faceplate that only moved slightly when he spoke, but the way he cocked his helm denoted a curious interest in her.

"Private," he acknowledged, his voice clipped and almost professorial in tone; an unexpectedly bookish manner for a heavy driller. He tilted his helm towards Avalanche's retreating back, an unspoken acknowledgement that Sunstreaker had places to be, though he watched thoughtfully as she moved after the Lieutenant.

-

Avalanche watched Sunstreaker closely as she put together an answer to her question, optics smouldering like embers in the dimness. The weight of her gaze was tangible.

Good answer.

It didn't seem like Sunstreaker had any prior knowledge of her; if she'd recognised Avalanche by reputation, she hadn't shown any sign of it. Every word was the result of deduction, recognition of the former Sergeant's position, and observation of her new officer's mannerisms.

The broad femme nodded slowly, turning to face outwards. Her gaze drifted over the crumbled towers, lingering on a distant grid of failing lights whose flickering, sporadic illumination leant the shadows around them an uneasy dancing quality.

"That's right," she said, her voice a low rumble. "I am unpopular with some of them. I've received bad orders in the past, and sometimes I've had to make hard decisions."

Heavy hands came to rest on the framework in front of her, curled loosely around the thick horizontal strands between broken panes as though resting on a railing.

"Some orders put you in positions that can't be survived. Sometimes that's because the commander doesn't know the position on the ground, or the situation's changed. And sometimes it's because you're being ordered to die for the greater good. That's our duty, if it has to be."

Avalanche leaned forward a little, a darker shadow amidst the gloom. Her helm turned towards Sunstreaker, revealing her optics once more.

"There's a reason I didn't tell you 'obey orders, stupid'. One day, if you live that long, there'll come a time when you need to disobey one. But if you do, you only do it to protect the mecha under your care, or fighting beside you. You do it for a damn good reason, with a clear view of the consequences."

The ghost of humour touched her voice, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

"And you'd better defend it well in front of me afterwards, or I'll kick your aft."

[Sunstreaker]

It wasn't like Avalanche had been speaking nonsense since they'd first met, but the what she was addressing right now was resonating with Sunstreaker deeply. Until very recently, all of the choices she'd ever had to make had been easy ones. Upon second thought however, she had to scratch that out. It had been hella easy to tell command to go screw themselves and to commit to an easy objective. That's what she got for having subsisted purely on raw talent for her entire life. For the rest of it now, Sunstreaker was ready (or would hopefully be ready soon) to make those hard decisions.

It wasn't the 'Hell yeah, screw orders' chat she was used to having with herself, though. The longer she reflected on her career up to this point, it began to dawn on her more and more. Avalanche, underneath that tough and tough exterior, she was someone who cared about her troops even above the mission. She was a leader of integrity.

Unlike you.

The empty, hollow feeling she'd been experiencing earlier returned with a vengeance. Duty, loyalty, integrity, humility... none of those words had ever meant much to Sunstreaker. How comical, that after a life lived so fast and strongly, full of friends and teammates who cared about her, that it was only in their absence, only in the void, that those words actually meant anything.

Yeah, she was a joke, alright...

Sunstreaker's train of thought, currently on fire and on collision course, was diverted as Avalanche redirected her gaze, the shorter femme naturally moving to meet it. That there was some solid wisdom, and Sunny hadn't a doubt that Avalanche had bled to receive it. If she'd made a different call with that kind of logic backing her up...

No. No more ruminating. Not now.

She'd been given her lesson, already. At this point, thinking about it even more was deleterious for her sanity. Anything else was preferable. Like Avalanche threatening to kick her aft. Sunstreaker hadn't defended her past blunder at all, partly because she understood up much of a screw-up she'd been. But if went along with what her new boss had said, like hell she'd take a punishment like this sitting down next time. If there was a next time. There would definitely be a next time, though. Ideally under less tragic circumstances.

She smiled, her tone steady, and her expression reassured. "You got it, boss."