[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Thunderous Quietude [Closed]

[Nokta]

Episode 3 | Week 4 | Day 5


SOUTH AMERICA, ANDES MOUNTAINS - 08:00 LOCAL TIME

Was he abusing the reach of his administrative abilities by recalling the squadron of Vehicons that had been assigned to scout this region for energon that morning? Possibly. Was he getting it done far faster than that squadron would have, given the nature of his new alt mode? Undeniably.

It had been a chance to stretch his legs after centuries of stasis– and more importantly, to test the efficacy of the Earthen alt-mode he’d chosen since arriving here less than a week ago. Being a mech whose Cybertronian alt-mode had been fine-tuned over many millennia to provide specific, reliable performance across a variety of terrain– a change like this would take some getting used to. He’d likely still have to see Flatline or Knock Out for a tune-up at least once in order to return to the levels of performance he was accustomed to– but for now, his new vehicle mode was more than serviceable.

That much was made certain by the fact that, in just under an hour, Nokta had more than half of the energon signatures in the region identified and tagged across a 10-mile swath of tundra. For a while there, it was looking like whoever was in charge of energon rations for the day would be singing his praises by the time he returned.

That is– until he ran into quite the significant obstacle.

The lieutenant stood with his arms crossed, staring up at a towering, nigh vertical rockface that jutted out from the land like a massive dagger. As he approached the base of the massive geological marvel, his small, handheld scanner beeped out a short trill, the screen indicating that the next signature was 130 meters away…straight up.

Nokta sighed, craning his neck to stare at the mountain, unable to even see the top as it disappeared into a misty layer of clouds high above. He could just leave it at that and let the flight-capable Vehicons scour for the rest of the area for the energon– but then that wouldn’t speak to his well-defined brand of soldierly determination, would it?

No, this would still be faster with him on the job– he only needed a separate set of optics.

The mech nodded his helm once as he made up his mind, calling it in. "LT Nokta to bridge, I need air reconnaissance on my position– send me a seeker." His comm-link briefly crackled to life as the Vehicon on the other end delivered a swift 'Yes, sir' and then the mech was in silence once more.

And so he stood there, datapad in hand as he began reviewing the deposits he’d already tagged, a growing sense of disquiet washing over him at the sight of them– each grouping was just as shallow as the last, and they were all spread out in the same narrow, north-easterly pattern. These were not the telltale signs of energon that had been left behind with the intent of being mined out of the planet’s surface later on– the groupings were much more sporadic and far more sparse in amount with each passing deposit. More a trickle than a lump sum– as if they were leading him to something.

"Hrm..," The scout muttered to himself in a haggard warble.

He didn’t know whether that fact should excite him or disturb him yet. But, it spurred him forth nonetheless. All that was left now was to wait and see which seeker command would send to aid him.

Primus knew he only hoped it wasn’t an annoying one.

[Thundercracker]

They always said that boredom was the biggest killer in combat.

The waiting around for something to happen, days upon weeks of nothing leading some to drop their guard, thinking that nothing was going to happen. Then, inevitably it did happen. A full offensive, a raid, a spoiling expedition, whatever it was would come along and make the poor suckers who happened to be there miserable with death and violence.

Still, sometimes the boredom got the Thundercracker too.

He was sitting on his recharge slab inside Blackridge staring up at the ceiling, having counted the edges in the room for the past two hours while he was working on the script for a play in his mind. Despite evidence to the contrary, Thundercracker knew that the war could not go on forever, and eventually life will resume its course either back on Cybertron or here on Earth. So, he was making the best use of his free time to come up with a play that he intended to write once the war was over. After all, the people will need entertainment to occupy their minds when they were trapped in situations like the one that he was facing.

A group of six friends in Iacon or some big city, three femmes and three mechs navigating life? Maybe have a few of them be roommates, maybe through some drama and romance in there with the main cast either having romantic partners outside the friend group or maybe in the friend group?

His musings were suddenly interrupted by a call from central, and he pressed the commlink on the side of his helmet to listen. Hrmph, something about a scout needing some overwatch while they scaled a mountain. Well, he didn’t have an excuse, plus it would be a good reason to get out of the base and into the sky which he almost never had a problem with unless Starscream was involved. The teal seeker swung his legs off the bed and pulled himself up, then left his room and walked over to the groundbridge where the crew there opened up the portal and sent him through his destination.

As he stepped out of the groundbridge he eyed the being who obviously had been the reason he’d been summoned with a bit of suspicion expressed through a raised eyebrow. This guy, whoever he was, was no vehicon. He didn’t recognize him, so either he was new or one of those loner types...

“You called?”

[Nokta]

As soon as the swirling blue-green of the groundbridge erupted behind him, the scout turned to face it. The mech flipped the datapad around in his grip as he slid his arms to rest behind his back, standing at attention while he waited for the newcomer.

Nokta knew exactly who he’d been assigned the second the seeker stepped through the groundbridge.

A flash of recognition glimmered in the mech’s optics, before quickly subsiding to their usual cold apathy. Having been stationed at Blackridge for quite a few days now, he’d had ample time to take census of the various mecha on base. That not only Commander Starscream, but also his entire trine was currently operating on Earth had not been a fact to elude him. Though, when he’d made the simple call for additional recon, he hadn’t expected Thundercracker himself to be the one to answer the call.

This surprise would not show itself in the lieutenant’s outward demeanor in any way, more than prepared to treat the mech much the same as he would any other soldier. Nokta himself would expect to be treated the same in Thundercracker’s place, at any rate.

"Thundercracker, I presume. Your swiftness is appreciated." He spoke, not a hint of anything other than soldierly protocol laced in his words. "My name is Lieutenant Nokta, I’ll be coordinating our efforts here today."

While he was certain those in the control room at Blackridge had given Thundercracker a brief in regards to the nature of this simply being an energon scouting run, he’d still explain the situation himself. As he continued speaking, he would unclasp his servos from behind his back, producing the datapad in his hand once more, tapping the screen with a slender digit.

"The geological formation behind me is the site of the last batch of energon signatures in this region. I need only a second pair of optics to guide me up the mountain as I find and tag them. I do not anticipate this taking long at all."

The mech then rose a servo to the inside of one of the horn-like finials atop his helm, appearing to dig around a moment before his hand came back holding a data cable that spooled out from his helm, before plugging it into the side of the datapad.

"I am sending you the data from my scanner now." The slender mech spoke gruffly, his optics regarding the datapad’s screen with casual scrutiny as he downloaded the data, preparing it in a small, compressed package.

Sure enough, not a second or two later Thundercracker would be met with a message request pinged over his commlink. The files would be attached to the request, allowing the seeker to skim through the coordinates of the generally assumed area of the energon deposits, should he choose to open the data packet right away.

"Do you have any questions before we begin?"

[Thundercracker]

So...this guy knew who he was...

Great.

As the mystery mech introduced himself as Lieutenant Nokta, Thundercracker looked back over his shoulder briefly to make sure that the groundbridge portal closed properly, then turned his attention back to Nokta as the scout went into an explanation of what their task was. As he listened, Thundercracker’s arms crossed over his chest as he studied the mech a bit more closely. Small, compact frame geared towards speed and stealth, not overly garish or flashy like some he’d seen around Blackridge.

He could see a blaster holstered on the mech, and if he had to guess Nokta did know how to use it. While he didn’t see anything indicating that he had a melee weapon, Thundercracker had to guess that it was merely concealed either as a forearm weapon or somewhere he couldn’t see it. There was a grenade belt, but they merely appeared to be smoke grenades, though those could be dangerous in ground combat. Finally, his manner of speaking. It was polite and formal, but not in a bombastic way that Thundercracker had learned to hate over the years like what Starscream used when he was sucking up to Megatron. Everything was clear and to the point.

Hmm...

As Nokta sent over the information, Thundercracker nodded and clicked the side of his helmet, scanning over the information briefly. When asked for questions he paused, giving it some thought before asking.

“One, what’s the visibility like? Cloud cover, weather, things like that. Secondly...you’re an officer, why not leave this to a squad of vehicons or some energon seekers?”

[Nokta]

If Nokta took notice of Thundercracker sizing him up, he didn’t show it. The lieutenant himself had done his own precursory read-through of the seeker’s dossier upon arriving at Blackridge, as he had done with so many others in the past few days. He saw no point in taking the time now to cross-reference with the information his superiors had already given him. Thundercracker was here, willing and able, and that was all that mattered.

"Water vapors in the lower atmosphere have been intermittent all afternoon. At present, there remains a thin layer of them near the peak. The weather remains clear, and is not expected to change." If nothing else, his highly technical manner of referring to the Earth’s meteorological elements spoke to his newness to the planet. Nokta would skim over one last artifact on his datapad as he spoke, before sub-spacing the tech and crossing his servos behind his lower back strut once more. The image of patience, he clearly had no issues answering questions as they came, an informed soldier was an effective one, after all.

"My reasons for assuming command of this operation are my own. At any rate, you yourself are an energon seeker, are you not? Or rather– you once were." Nokta’s upper derma curled downwards then, the thought of having potentially been misinformed seeming to irk him. "Certainly, intelligence at Blackridge is not so underserved as to have gotten that much wrong." It was less a question aimed at Thundercracker than it was a comment on Blackridge itself.

Though Nokta had only been there less than a week now, it had been more than enough time to begin forming his own opinions about the state of Blackridge Hold. To say the least, changes to the efficiency of certain departments were well-needed at the outpost. He’d be damned if there were going to be even more needed within his own division.

While 'his reasons being his own' was not entirely incorrect, there still remained another potential factor to this mission. A factor that would not be made known to Thundercracker yet, as the lieutenant himself still had his suspicions. Further surveillance of the mountain would be needed first, and there was still the matter of the energon deposits themselves to attend to.

[Thundercracker]

Thundercracker nodded at the weather report, mentally filing away the information for later should the need arise. Water vapor wasn’t too much of a concern, though the clouds they created could be useful for temporary concealment should the need arise, or they could hide an ambush if he wasn’t careful. At the scout’s comment, Thundercracker’s wings rose to their full height as the seeker stood upright.

“Once an energon seeker, always an energon seeker.”

There was obvious pride in his words. Thundercracker had enjoyed his time back in Vos before the war, looking back fondly on the experience especially after his falling out with Starscream. Plus, if he survived this war, Thundercracker intended to go back to his original line of work, as there would always be a need for energon seekers in Cybertronian society. That way he’d have a line of steady work, and he honestly enjoyed the job as it meant that he had long stretches of solitude to be alone with his thoughts.

“Well, if nothing else, then let’s get this show on the road.”

With that, Thundercracker transformed into his alternate mode, the earth that had previously been beneath his feet scorching as he activated his afterburners to provide the thrust he needed to jet into the air above Nokta. Once he was about five thousand feet above Nokta, the teal seeker would shut off the afterburners and do a quick circle checking for obvious threats before signaling.

::Ready?::

[Nokta]

Nokta nodded as Thundercracker confirmed that he was, in fact, a seeker. Good. Thundercracker clearly took pride in this fact. It was not too surprising to the onyx mech, he’d known his fair share of seekers throughout his lifetime. The conviction in Thundercracker’s words was almost enough to bring a smile to the scout’s faceplates.

But he wouldn’t. Even though the brief wave of nostalgia was refreshing.

He was merely satisfied with the fact that those manning the command station at Blackridge weren’t complete buffoons after all, and had sent him the proper mech for the job. Nokta watched the display of Thundercracker transforming idly, staring as the jet soared into the skies until he was nothing but a blip high above, and then out of sight completely. Upon this, he finally turned toward the rock face behind him and began climbing.

Long, slender prong-tipped digits cut through rock like a hot knife through butter and held sturdy as Nokta began his ascent up the mountain. Earth rock was far softer than any he’d known on Cybertron, but it still held his weight better than most. Nokta was a smaller, thinner grounder than most, but he did not lack in the weight factor of the average grounder– but that didn’t seem to pose a problem quite yet.

After he neared a height of about one hundred meters, he stopped, pulling the energon scanner out of his subspace.

:I have a signal about 40 meters away from me.: The mech spoke after activating their comm channel, leaning his head away from the mountainous surface to crane his neck left and right in an attempt to see if he could spot the energon. To his right, the mountain continued mostly flat, but to his left, the rock jutted out some, obscuring his view of what might be on the other side.

:Scan my immediate region. Is the source to my left or right?: The lieutenant’s rasp carried over their comm link as he hung to the side of the mountain awaiting the response.

Of course, he knew he wouldn’t have to wait long at all.

[Thundercracker]

Flying high in the sky searching for energon...

This was what Thundercracker had been made to do, and he loved it. It felt like an intake of fresh, pure energon, clearing his mind. For a moment, he almost forgot where he was as his mind wandered back through the centuries to happier times. No war, no Autobots or Decepticons, and Starscream wasn’t as much of a pain in the thrusters.

Then that peace was shattered by Nokta’s communication.

Right, he had a job to do.

Thundercracker circled once more to get in position, then paused midair thanks to his Cybertronian biology. He oriented his nose in the direction that Nokta indicated, then let loose with his scanners for about five seconds.

::Right side.:: he replied.

[Nokta]

The mech sent a wordless ping of acknowledgment back to Thundercracker as he began climbing to his right in search of the signal source. Needless to say, Nokta was more than pleased he’d been given a seeker to work with that actually followed simple instructions for once. Given the rather…eccentric nature of many of the mecha stationed at Blackridge, a great portion of whom he’d been told had fairly difficult personalities to work alongside, he’d been prepared for the worst– and so far his assumptions were being proven wrong.

He made it to the energon in short order, holding his scanner up to the rockface as soon as he came to a stop, the device in his hand spilling a beam of orange light down against the rock as he held it there. The beam of light would illuminate the inside of the mountain, highlighting a few other useless minerals like gold, iron, and copper, until about 10 meters in it finally highlighted the turquoise-blue energon crystals embedded in the rock. The scout promptly tagged its location and then craned his neck upwards, peering into the fast-growing cloud cover inundating the mountain, beginning to obscure vision.

Nokta let out a ‘hmph’ before referring to his scanner once more.

:There are three more signals in a 300-meter range above me. Vision is starting to get dicey down here, begin preliminary scans and ping the data back to me.: The mech ordered Thundercracker through their comms.

[Thundercracker]

Honestly, Thundercracker figured he probably could have gotten the job done by himself in about half the time that it was taking Nokta thanks to the fact that he could fly while Nokta could not. Still...there was something nice about working with someone towards a common goal again...made him miss the old days again.

Speaking of Nokta...

::Standby::

Thundercracker raised his altitude up a couple hundred of feet and reoriented his nose, aiming it at the area where Nokta had given him rough directions to the energon. Once his own onboard sensors told him that he was oriented correctly, he let out another pulse of his sensors to get a lay of the land.

::Got it, pinging now.::

Once he had the data recorded he pinged it over to Nokta.

::So...how long have you been here anyway? On Earth, I mean?::

[Nokta]

:Copy.: The scout responded as he awaited the data. Once the data packet was sent and signal pings bloomed across his internal HUD, Nokta began climbing again. The mech did not appear to have lost any energy whatsoever, despite the fact that at this point he was nearing a half-kilometer in his ascent.

Spotting one of the deposits– this time visibly sticking out of the mountain about one hundred feet above him, Nokta half heard the seeker’s question as the traversal array in his processor began prompting him with the most effective route up to the deposit, which was in a somewhat trickier spot than the others, one in which Nokta would have to do some careful maneuvering around multiple protrusions in the rock.

:Ninety-seven hours, twenty-four minutes, eighteen seconds, by Earthen time measurements.: A small grunt would be heard through Thundercracker’s comm-link as Nokta leaped to the side, digging his spindly talons into the rock to swing around a protrusion in a manuever that looked effortless by the time he made it around the other side.

"But who’s counting?" He would mumble only to himself as opposed to speaking the words into his and Thundercracker’s shared comm channel.

As Nokta’s other servo came to rest on the energon deposit to steady himself, he was thoroughly surprised to find that the energon crystal felt…warm. Almost buzzing with energy, despite the near-freezing temperatures this high up, and the fact that this specific deposit had likely been hidden within the Earth for thousands of years, if not many more, it felt as though it had just been freshly dumped. The mech shook his helm, taking note of the strange anomaly as he tagged this second deposit and moved on to the next.

:Since we’re being…friendly, might I ask you a question of my own?:

[Thundercracker]

As Thundercracker did the conversion in his head between Earth and Cybertonian units (something that he hated doing), it became obvious to him that Nokta hadn’t been on Earth all that long. The fact that this mech was out and about working despite only being on Earth for such a short time was...enlightening to say the least.

Nokta was obviously a workaholic. It caused Thundercracker to reflect slightly, as he remembered meeting similar mechs who were obsessed with working, both before the war and during. He never understood the ones before the war, while he took pride in his work he needed to take time off and enjoy himself, something made somewhat easier with Skywarp around. It was the mechs who were workaholics during wartime that Thundercracker understood a bit better. A lot of them had lost something, and so the only thing they had left was their work for the cause. It was something that he had become quite familiar with once he had left Starscream and Skywarp to their own devices to assuage his own conscious.

Nokta’s question broke him out of his stupor, and it caused Thundercracker to frown mentally for a few moments. While he doubted Nokta would ask a deep and intrusive question, centuries had conditioned Thundercracker to be a bit tight lipped when it came to certain topics. Well...he could always refuse should the question be too personal, and they were being friendly...

::Sure, ask away...::

[Nokta]

Truthfully, the question had been one bouncing around in the further recesses of the scout’s mind since he’d arrived on Earth and gone through all the personnel files at Blackridge. That all three members of Commander Starscream’s trine were on Earth was somewhat surprising, though not an unwelcome revelation in the slightest. In the lieutenant’s mind, they needed all the firepower they could get given the state their army was in now– and having the full might of Starscream’s trine at hand would be a valuable addition to High Command’s arsenal.

But when Nokta discovered that Thundercracker’s role in the army was no further elaborated upon than simply that of frontlines infantry, it had given him pause. At first, he’d thought it was merely a mistake in Blackridge’s database. Certainly a mech with such important ties to their second-in-command– and possessing enough skill to last so long in the war– would have been given an officership at least? Thundercracker seemed relatively level-headed compared to most seekers Nokta had known, and the lieutenant did not expect any reaction from the teal flier to be particularly volatile if this question was brought to the table– and so he asked.

::You’ve been with the Decepticons from the beginning. Energon Seeker before the war– a title rather prestigious in its own right. As well as trinemate to a respected commander in the army,:: Nokta prefaced, careful and precise in his word choice. Nothing in his tone seemed to indicate anything other than what he thought to be entirely factual. He wouldn’t go so far as to refer to Thundercracker and Starscream as 'brothers' per se– he knew enough about seekers to know that many trines differed in familiarity amongst members, many simply forming these bonds out of necessity and leaving it at that, not preferring the more intimate titles that others did.

::You could be anyone. A general, a major– a captain easily. Perhaps even an Air Commander yourself…:: another short pause, as Nokta engaged a second risky maneuver around an outcrop. ::And yet you’re here-- on a routine scouting mission below even my paygrade,::

::Why?:: The younger mech finally asked, intrigue and metered curiosity in his voice– a noticeable shift from what had otherwise been a fairly unreadable tone before.

[Thundercracker]

Oh...this question...

It wasn’t an uncommon one. Thundercracker had been asked this since just about day one when he split off to do his own thing. The nanosec someone figured out his name, there was a question along the lines of ‘what are you doing here?’. At first he had gotten tired of answering the same question over and over again, but as the centuries wore on he figured it was his one way of resisting. His one way to bite back against the decisions made by others that had landed him in this mess.

::First off all Lieutenant, I was not there from the beginning. While some seekers might have joined the Decepticons during the days when Megatronus was merely a gladiator preaching about equality, most of us followed Winglord Starscream after our city of Vos was bombed by the Decepticons.::

He spit that last part out a bit more forcefully, allowing a hint of irritation to creep into his voice. Back then he would have followed Starscream into Unicron’s sparkchamber and beyond without a doubt or hesitation. But when Starscream capitulated and left neutral ground to join up with the Decepticons, Thundercracker had been incredulous. It was the first time the two of them had really fought. But in the end, he decided to follow loyalty instead of his own conscious.

::But to answer your question, I decided that I did not want to rely on Starscream in order to make my way in the universe. I wanted to be my own mech.::

That was a sanitized version of a touchy answer. As much as Thundercracker did not like Starscream, the mech was still his brother. He wasn’t going to start or contribute to any rumors behind Starscream’s back like that. Besides, in this place, if it got out that Thundercracker left because he did not like what Starscream was becoming, it could out the fact that Thundercracker was only loyal to the Decepticon cause because he didn’t have the bearings to strike out on his own.

[Nokta]

Nokta grew quiet as Thundercracker answered his question.

In all this time, Nokta hadn’t given much thought to the state of the seekers before Vos. He always had this sense that Starscream had been an ally to Megatron from the start. But then, it was always possible he’d simply remembered things wrong. The time period after Nokta’s own recruitment– after the fall of Nova Cronum–had been an immense blur after all. It hadn’t been until he’d been notified that he was being considered for promotion that he finally forced himself into a haphazard sense of clarity all those years ago. If not for himself, then for the cause he served.

::It seems I have some brushing up to do on my history lessons, then.:: Nokta responded. ::My apologies,:: He added, sounded a bit more clipped– more formal than he’d been while asking that initial question.

::Nonetheless, my original statement stands,:: Then, realizing he’d been at a standstill on the cliffside, merely clutching onto the rocks as he considered the other mech’s words that short moment, Nokta continued climbing once more.

::You’ve proven yourself a resourceful soldier. My point is simply that it’s a shame to see one so talented left so low in the ranks,:: Nokta continued matter-of-factly. ::But I can understand your hesitance to an officership if you believe it would only be attributed to Air Commander Starscream’s influence.::

Any other mech and Nokta might have taken Thundercracker’s words as something near to treasonous. But Thundercracker was obviously a special case, given his relation to the second in command. Nokta himself couldn’t imagine living in that shadow. While he couldn’t quite relate to 'wanting to be his own mech', whatever that meant, he could at least understand why Thundercracker might not want to rely on Starscream to make a name for himself.

::I myself am not…unfamiliar with the feeling.:: Nokta almost mumbled the response, as though it were fading to an afterthought, feeling hesitant to open up even that much to Thundercracker, who was still essentially a stranger at this point.

But still, a little show of solidarity couldn’t hurt either of them.