Ep0.5 - Cleaver's Ship/Sahara - 'Moving House'

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<<OOC: Set after Barricade has left, so it's just Cleaver, Moonshot, Reflector and Cat on-board.>>

"Alright, everyone. Here goes..."

It was with a final quiet prayer to Primus that Cleaver keyed the ignition of the buried ship, steeling herself for the rumble and creak as the not insignificant amount of earth on top was suddenly disturbed by vibrations. It had been forty-six years since the ship had moved, and though the status reports had come in clean, she'd still been keenly aware of the danger of finally unearthing her.

The cockpit was the most dangerous place to be for this maneuver, so despite the co-pilot seat to her left, Cleaver had strapped herself in alone and ordered the rest of the 'crew' to their own quarters. Moonshot and Reflector could endure any turbulance that they encountered, and Cat's escape pod had a separate inertial dampener and stabilizing system that would keep the ride smooth for the fragile human. The internal comm. system kept everyone updated - hopefully she wouldn't need to tell them all to brace...

Taking the yoke control in both hands, Cleaver steadily brought the wing thrusters to bear to drive the ship upwards through the soil. More rumbling, a lot of shaking, and her plates were constricting energon-flow they were so tight by the time they popped free of the planet's crust and into clear air. Whilst dirt and small rocks showered off the ship in a cloud of dust, she checked the systems again to ensure that nothing was damaged in the unearthing.

So far so good... A long, calming exhale, and then Cleaver keyed in the next set of codes. "Engaging the ground bridge."

The vortex spun open a short distance in front of the hovering ship, boosted to maximum size to accomodate the vessel. With a smile, Cleaver angled the ship forward towards the 'bridge for its last flight. On the other side, it would be dismantelled and spread out amongst the base. Moonshot's shuttle was in pieces in the cargo holds, awaiting the same fate.

They flew into the central atrium, almost filling it. She'd taken them through at a crawl, having set the 'bridge to open just after the interior wall, though there were still only a few meters to spare in front of the nose once they were inside. Lowering the craft onto its six landing struts, Cleaver checked that the tail was fully through before cycling down the 'bridge and powering off the engines.

Sagging back in the pilot's chair, Cleaver dropped her hands to her sides with thick relief. "We're here."

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The ship was filled with a life that Catherine hadn't felt before. Other occupants aside, since she'd started boarding here, it always seemed to have a quiet presence: the soothing hum of its inner grid running whatever systems were needed, its sheer mass, the timeless imprint of its history. However the flexing and groaning of engines that hadn't run since before she was born made the walls vibrate in a way that was both intriguing and mystifying. She'd never been inside a space ship before, much less live inside one and an alien space ship at that, and then again an alien space ship that was actively moving.

If she could, she would have been in quarters with Reflector and Moonshot, hanging out until landing… instead she thought she might behave. But the containment was making her muscles knot up with the energy and excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. So it was with all of this energy that she literally sprung from her bed when she heard, felt the engines settle into a thankful, last sigh.

"We're here."

Face stretched into a grin from ear to ear she burst from her pod and practically skipped her way towards the cockpit. Not living in one of the actual berth rooms put the retrofitted med bay and her other roommates out of her beeline for Cleaver, so instead she pulled her little device from her back pocket, grin audible through the speaker as she rounded the corner. //C'mon, guys, we're here!//
Unlike Moonshot and Cleaver, she'd yet to see their new home, so it was with a bounce in her step that she padded into the cockpit. "'Ey, Cleaver, nice drivin'." She paused some distance from the pilot's seat, sporting today a pair of bright green, sharp-framed glasses casually hanging on the bridge of her nose. "How'd it feel after 40 years an' change?"

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Welp, if Cat thought the base was quiet, Moonshot's half-sparked efforts at soundproofing must have amounted to something after all. The white mech hadn't stopped blaring techno at decibels detrimental to human hearing since he'd returned from the Sahara some time before, and if said utter-disregard-for-local-sound-ordinances-masquerading-as-music had a rather more upbeat feel than its predecessors, that was no one's business but his own.

Moonshot was, truth be told, fresh out of reasons to play the part of sentient thornbush. Everything, as the humans said, was coming up roses. Cleaver was back on her pedes, all but recovered from her brush with death-by-way-of-decomposition; Barricade was gone, fled back to his masters in whatever Pit had spawned them- good riddance to that particular bit of rubbish!- and somewhere along the line Cat had talked him into a trip to the land of sports cars and blinding speed.

The first thrum of vibration through the ship's hull yanked him from his dreamworld of backbeat and tempo-shift. He couldn't see the ground sink away as the ship's engines spun up to speed, had only faint shifts in orientation and gravity to go by, but that subtle cue was enough to send a surge of fierce joy zinging through his lines. The Neutralist faction would likely never shed its underdog status, never demand the respect and, yes, fear that its counterparts commanded, but by Primus, when the unaligned put their minds to something, it happened.

Wait for it... waaaaait for it... Oh Primus, please don't let this frag up...

Hydraulics hissed, gravity reasserted itself and all of Moonshot's pent-up exuberance found release in a vocalizer-straining whoop of pure elation. The dam, once burst, refused to be diverted; Moonshot didn't so much walk to the bridge as he did dance there, and for once in his life he abso-fragging-lutely didn't care who saw his shenanigans. He was happy, fraggit- happy enough to volley a staticky-with-glee //No, we're all fraggin' dead and on our way to Primus! Get with the times, squishball!// back at Cat over open comms.

Happy enough to envelop Cleaver in a clumsy hug the moment her servos cleared the steering column, too, but we won't talk about that.

"Okay, so, we're here now. Cat needs a tour, and I need to do some reorganizing and- holy slag we've got a lot of work ahead of us, don't we? I mean, we always did, but this just puts a Pit of a fine point on things, and-"

It was the most he'd said in succession since landing on Earth, and though the Autobot gunner was thousands of miles away, Moonshot blamed Bluestreak anyway. There was, after all, no way such manic hyperactivity could be his own fault.

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Cleaver was a solid femme, tall and thickly built, but Moonshot's wholly unexpected and borderline-grappling hug nearly toppled her back into the pilot's seat. She grasped his elbow to stay upright, to sort-of return the embrace, and finally to shut him up as he looked to be blasting off into a Class 1 monologue.

"Slag, Moonshot - yes, lots to do. And it'll get done," Cleaver reassured, extracting herself from the sniper's arms to invite Cat into her hands. Since the burns, she'd become particularly protective of the fragile human, and with a hyperactive Moonshot bouncing around within squishing-range... "I've already loaded an itinerary, base map and a breakdown of where all the supplies off this ship and your own are going onto the databank." She transmitted him the file, glyphing an invitation to go and get started if he was that excited.

Turning her gaze to her cupping hands, Cleaver smiled. "Leave Cat with me for the tour. I have something for you first, though."

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Head tilted and utterly amused Cat observed Moonshot as she would have an overexcited puppy. He had, since their first meeting, warmed up to her enough for her to consider him less just a roommate and more a friend, but he had always been somewhat quiet. Only after he returned with Cleaver from house hunting did his optics seem a bit brighter. With a raised brow and a smirk, she made a mental note to find out just who went house hunting with him. She'd have to invite said person(s) over for tea sometime.

"You heard the woman, 'Shot! Girl's tour first." She shot a smirk up towards Cleaver, sharing an expression of amusement at Moonshot's enthusiasm. Though her arms were still healing and bandaged, it was more comfortable to grip things now than it had been the first day. Lightly she touched on Cleaver's thumb, settling into a comfortable position on the familiar and welcome perch as she mirrored the medic's smile and… 'Oh, does she mean…?' "For…me, or for…?" She began a bit hesitantly, shifting a glance to Moonshot briefly before facing Cleaver.

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"For you."

Shifting Cat into one palm, Cleaver dipped her hand into her subspace pocket with the other. From it, she withdrew a red Apache RLX 400 - a heavy duty, utility quad bike. Kneeling, she set both it and her human companion on the decking and tapped the leather seat with a fingertip.

"It doesn't transform, but it's been modified to run on energon so it'll go some, and let you get around the base and keep up with folk. Reflector'll probably like to ride around with you for that reason alone. iPod dock's on the dash, comm. unit's built in, and it's road legal, so you can 'bridge out if you want to drive in open air and leave your truck here."

Cleaver hesitated, trying to read Cat's reaction from autonomics alone. It was an apology, housewarming and a welcome to the family gift wrapped into one. It could also be presumptuous, inappropriate or just plain stupid. Microparts in her hands twitching beneath the surface plates, the femme instinctively pinged a query glph at Cat. "Do you like it?"

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Catherine went to ground with a fluttering stomach, her movements slow from thoughts that had raced and come to a sudden, blunt halt. For you, she said. Stepping as gingerly as if the ground under her were ice she circled the Apache as Cleaver explained, face far too stunned to give anything away other than eyes as wide as saucers. All emotions swirled to quickly and at once she couldn't gather them together in a cohesive manner, couldn't put a finger on it. Until... she asked. Do you like it?

A slow smile spread across her face.

That was it. This wasn't just a gift, an offering, a kind gesture; it was all of that, melted with thick undertones of something warmer and far deeper. It was from a friend, from a femme who had become as familiar and as welcome as home, into a world... their world, their home as warm and filling as family. Gratitude flooded her, threatening to moisten her eyes and leaver her as much a blubbering mess as when Tony and her mother had gifted her things on graduation day. It took her a moment to sort her thoughts, to loosen her throat enough to speak and then get her tongue to stop sticking.

"You got this for me?" Catherine was an emotional person to say the least. If you didn't know what she was saying, you would damn well get the gist of what she was feeling. And she felt everything in one extreme or another. She turned towards Cleaver with a grin, absent of usual mischief and accented with a look in her eyes that seemed strangely older and more adult. ...That lasted for all of a nano-klik before she squealed, diving for Cleaver's closest digit/hand in a fit of giggles to encircle in a hug. "I love it! Grazie, grazie mille! Thank you!"

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Cleaver locked the mechanisms in her hand for Cat's impromptu hug, minimising the possibility of catching the still-healing skin between her plates in a twitch. She smiled, hummed warmly to convey that she was welcome, and then when Cat didn't stop enthusiastically hugging her finger, quietly rumbled: "Alright, enough - it's not worth all that."

Cat let her go with what Cleaver was certain was a knowing smirk, and the old femme straightened back up onto her pedes with a loud rustle of her rotors. A huff through her vents before she met Moonshot's impossibly bright optics. "Did you see Reflector on your way? Or were you too busy bouncing off the walls?"

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"No, Creator, I haven't seen him. I was a bit busy dancing my aft off, thank you very-fragging-much!"

Moonshot was fond of claiming he didn't have, need or want a motto, some glib byline to define himself by. The fact remained, though, that the essence of his being boiled down to the simple phrase, 'When in doubt, snark.' Even if it didn't convince bemused observers of his emotional resilience in the face of revelations sweet enough to make his denta ache, it sure as Pit made him feel better.

Repeating that mantra to himself made ignoring the undercurrent of amusement/fondness/'oh sweet Primus you people are dumb, why do I tolerate you again?' to his words easier, too.

"He's probably hiding in the cargo bay or something. Somewhere I won't misstep and squish him. Smart mech."

The white turned to leave then, processor and to-do list already locked in mortal combat, before a sudden realization took precedence over everything else and made him sway to a halt in the doorway.

"...Cat. CAT. This means I get to blow up that scrap-heap you call a car."

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She left her own commentary unspoken, save for her thoughts hidden in the very corner of her smirk, that if Reflector were hiding anywhere, it'd be as a fly on the wall monitoring his every step, none of which were likely to be over that adorable little box-shaped cranium. Her same-sized friend was a smart mech, indeed. Just as Moonshot had turned to leave, Cat shifted her weight to the hip nearest Cleaver (transforming to gossip root mode), eyes rolling side glance and head slightly tilted so that the low-tone of her voice would be meant for Cleaver. "Y'notice how he's been -- DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE."

Hands to hips--ow that kind of smarts--feet planted and braced and angular glasses intensifying the narrowing of her eyes… but destroyed and taken into the negatives by the same glasses's bright green tint. "That 'scrap-heap's' got my stuff in it! I bought that thing myself!" And the duct tape that holds it together. "You blow up my car, I put Hello Kitty stickers all over that pretty white finish and eat nachos in your interior, capiche?"

Nevermind if someone else didn't blow it up, it might blow up itself one day. But it'd be on her terms, damn it. And besides, if she gave Moonshot that freedom now there's no telling what he'd start taking out to the range if he deemed it necessary. Thumbing over her shoulder at her 400, she raised her brows and tilted her chin at 'Shot, the expression taking the edge from her words. "Don't think about it. Me 'n Ref'll find you."