Ep 1.5 - This Strange New World - Closed

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[[This is the first thread of the Order of Solus arrival plotline. It takes place near/at the site of Grimlock's arrival, about a week later. Cast is Order of Solus. Scope of thread is arriving on Earth and discovering Grimlock's wreckage and the associated unidentifiable blown up Cybertronian remains.]]

They'd approached the planet slowly - the distinctive signature of the Decepticon flagship had been briefly detectable from their initial system entry point, along with a scattering of other craft of multiple factions. All Cybertronian signals had since vanished as if they were never there. Oddly, there was plenty of non-Cybertronian chatter, a constant deluge of apparently completely oblivious alien babble. Was it even possible to not notice Megatron when he was on the same planet?

Apparently it was. Both factions were running silent. As the Order's interests lay firmly in the direction of avoiding unnecessary conflict, so were they, for now. It was better to be a welcome (or unwelcome!) surprise than a potential target with Decepticons around. Their ship was well-cloaked as it lowered to the rocky desert near where one of the detected Autobot signals had crashed. Maybe there they would find some clues to what had gone on.

Flareup was linked into the ship's sensors. It was a usual sort of task for her - she had been created as part of a ship hivemind, and had the sort of experience that came from a long history of more or less being a ship. A pair of her small deployers perched on the back of her seat, staring in different directions to increase her situational awareness. "Temperature and atmospheric profile are within acceptable boundaries for indefinite external operation. Crash site identified."

As she turned to look at the One, her deployers rearranged themselves to watch the instruments. "Elita, I think there was a fight here. There are noticeable scorch marks and possible residual remains of an offlined mech. Should we investigate?"

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So, this was Earth.

Elita stood where she could see out the main viewport of the ship, war hammer braced against the floor. Clouds of water vapor had briefly enshrouded them before giving way to a spot of incongruous desert on a watery world, a precious rarity in this galaxy. As the ship descended in a slow arc, Elita too could see what Flareup detected - long black scorch marks, clearly made by nothing natural. Either the humans had conflicts of their own, or Cybertron's war had left its mark on Earth already.

Neither boded well, but the presence of a mech's remains pointed toward the latter.

"Investigate," Elita confirmed. "But - carefully. Whatever made those marks could still be monitoring the area."

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So... this is Earth. ...It's so incredible!

Hot Rod could barely contain her excitement, and was sure she would dent herself trying. Pressed against the side viewport, she gripped her own arms, vents working quickly as she watched the new world to protect rise up to embrace their ship. Elita had said that the blue sparkle covering much of the planet was water - liquid water! Imagine! - but the desert was just as beautiful, layers of red and tan against a sky that burned as blue as an Autobot's optics.

And there were Autobots and Decepticons here, and a new species to meet and befriend - and protect. The whole reason the Order existed. The reason Hot Rod existed.

"I'm ready to scout, Elita-One," Hot Rod stated.

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Flareup nodded. "Our passive stealth measures can likely keep us hidden from most surveillance for a few planetary cycles. We've identified some frequencies with significant alien traffic that we could perhaps use to keep our profile low, but comms are a little risky."


She stood, and there was a still moment as one of her torso panels slid out of existence to let a third deployer crawl out and onto one of the ship's control panels. "Flashover will continue our work here and act as a relay." Bright and curious emotions danced between her and the active deployers. "We would also like to investigate."

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Elita felt herself smiling, and did nothing to hide it. It would have been a little hypocritical of her, for truth be told, she was not immune to the excitement of a new inhabited planet herself. Billions of inhabitants, a processor-defying array of diversity, and all of it possessed of that strange, fascinating quality called organic. Elita had only had the briefest taste of their world so far, by tapping into their transmissions from orbit, and she couldn't wait to learn more.

But. First things first.

"Hot Rod," she asked. "What search pattern would you use for this situation?"

The young fighter's optics lit eagerly, then dimmed as she gave the question thought. "It's an open area," she mused aloud. "I'd stick to whatever cover I could find - the ship itself if there's no other option, since it's cloaked. Follow the contours of the terrain, map them out, stay within shouting distance of each other in case comms are jammed." Recitation ended, she peeked up hopefully.

"Very good." Elita gave her a nod; Hot Rod bounced on her pedes. "You and Flareup will scout; Flashover will coordinate, and I will monitor for Autobot and Decepticon frequencies to get a better idea of what's going on down here. As Flareup suggests, use your comm sparingly and piggyback on the high-traffic frequencies."

She paused, and none to soon; the ship bumped to a halt on the ground, kicking up sand to briefly cloud the windows. "And - welcome to Earth, sisters."

((Skip Roddi; Flareup can be the first out.))

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Flareup mentally reviewed what she/they knew about the world as she stepped outside, facemask raised to present a blank visage. The local sun was just beginning to rise, illuminating the desolate landscape. She didn't know what they'd find at the crash site - someone to rescue? dangerous enemies? nothing at all?

A panel on her back slid into subspace. Flamewing sparked into awareness and rose, easily sustaining flight in the thick atmosphere. Firebreak skittered out of the ship and began to burn-drill her way into the soft dirt and rock to get a good sense of the subsurface. Reburn wandered off in yet a third direction to scope out the perimeter.

"It's a short drive in this direction," she said over her shoulder to Hot Rod. Her thick protective armor slid into subspace as she transformed to her comparatively very small vehicle form. "We see nothing that could threaten us yet."

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Roddi was all but vibrating with eagerness and joy as she took her first steps on Earth. It wasn't her first time on an exoplanet, but they had always been lifeless and cold before - the desert air of this world wrapped around her like a scratchy blanket, the sun's glare forcing her to filter her optics. She grinned, stretching her arms out - spaceship travel always seemed so cramped, no matter the size of the ship! - and transformed, picking a direction that was different from the ones Flareup and her deployers had chosen.

"First one to find native fauna wins," she called, and started out over the sand, heading for the rocky area she could see ahead - plenty of cover for scouting.

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Flareup scooted around awkwardly on her two wheels to watch Hot Rod roar off before revving up and heading towards the crash site. It was nice to have open space in front of her , certainly, even if she/they didn't have quite the pent-up energy Roddie could bring to bear. The racer would probably work her way around to their target site eventually. Maybe even faster than Flareup, who needed to watch out more carefully for terrain hazards.

Only scorch-marks and warped debris remained when she got there. There was no tell-tale pillar of smoke, no residual heat beyond the considerable radiation from the local sun. This pod wreck had happened when they were still in the outer system, but the exact details remained unclear on a visual examination.She/they waited as her/Flamewing flew over to help with the site analysis. Even in her smaller vehicle form, Flareup was loath to disturb the site before the hive had looked at it from every angle. There were angles her deployers were much better at looking at.

She did have enough data to determine that the ship's sensors had been right.Some of this wreckage was blown up portions of a mech. One of their kind had terminated here, or been terminated.

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Hot Rod did find the first native fauna: a tiny, fluttering, six-legged thing that held her spellbound for a minute. But as Flareup didn't seem to be as into the game as she was, the victory was a hollow one. The little fluttery thing really was beautiful though.

She categorized sixteen native fauna and ten varieties of the stationary life-forms on her broad sweep of the area, but no sign of anything mechanical - until she got to Flareup's side, and surveyed the - well, it was a burned-out crater with a scatter of parts that it was hard to believe had ever once belonged to a single mechanism.

The sight sobered Roddi. She knelt, picked up a charred scrap of armor. "Flareup... what happened here?"

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"Well," Flareup said very seriously, "something exploded. Probably the Autobot escape pod we detected landing in this area when we were in the outer system."

There was the hum of tiny rotors as Flamewing arrived on-scene. Flareup picked up a small piece of wreckage and absently put it in her intake.

"We think it landed survivably and then got blown up," she added after a somewhat awkward silence. "That is the hive's present theory. Did you find any organics?"

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"Oh, yes, lots." Hot Rod pinged a file to Flareup, with memory-captures of the organics she'd seen. "I can't wait to learn what they're called. I didn't see anything that seemed sapient though." With the exception of the fluttery thing, most of the organic fauna had fled at her approach - most of her pictures showed them from behind.

She picked up another shard of metal, tried to fit it against the one in her hand. "Do you think whoever landed in this pod blew it up hirself?" she asked. "Or did something else come along? Either way, ou could come back, huh? And ou might not be happy to see us."

She recalibrated her sensors, keeping watch for any moving metal. If the pod-exploder were to return to the scene of the crime, she didn't want to be caught unawares.

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Flareup politely looked through the images, though her field radiated a tiny bit of squick. Most things looked tiny and would probably ooze if stepped on. Eeek.

"I have been told the Autobots do not usually field individuals with a similar function class to us/deployers. So she/unknown likely did not blow herself up. Potentially enemies trapped this individual inside the pod and and then blew it up. Or she could have done the reverse, though that seems less likely. There is very little remaining to base an opinion on, but the destruction is more gratuitous than we would expect from an Autobot. I would be wary of potential threats to our ship."

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"Elita-One," Hot Rod breathed. "If - whoever did this - if they came back, she'd be in danger."

The damage before them was undeniable, and it was far too easy for Roddi to picture the same befalling their ship, and their leader waiting inside. Her watchfulness bloomed into full-blown - well, an observer might have called it just a touch of paranoia, but to Hot Rod it was All Due Caution on an alien world invaded by hostile Cybertronians. And it was magnified by her natural tendency to throw herself into everything she did without reservation.

"Come on," she said determinedly, grabbing Flareup's hand. "We've got to lay down some defenses."

((OOC: Good time for 'Bots to jump in?))

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"We have been considering the problem," Flareup said. "and... er... one moment." She stopped to let Flamewing slide into dock on her shoulder and link in, then let Hot Rod continue to drag her along.

A surprising amount of hive data sharing occurred via comm burst, so they needed to update each other every so often when they weren't using comms. It wasn't that much of a handicap - they had all shared an identical spark very recently, so their actions were largely the same whether they could talk to each other or not. She had explained the sensation to a medic once as similar to being able to move a hand without getting any sensory feedback. Hive blips were pretty cryptic and usually went unnoticed, but the hive was minimizing them right now because she/they didn't want to take chances.

Flamewing was carrying an update from Firebreak as well as her own sync data. The burrower had interesting information about voids in the soil and rock below. Flareup nearly laughed at the ideas that came to mind. Oh, this could be fun.

"Back this way," she said. "If they come, we'll be ready."

{{Let's wrap here and have the Autobots be a new thread}}

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Hot Rod liked that expression - that grin of 'I have an idea!' - on Flareup's face. It was so similar to expressions she wore a lot, the ones that led to Interesting Days even if they didn't quite work out how she'd planned.

"Slaggin' right we will," she answered determinedly.

((And now the lying in wait for certain Autobots begins~))