Ep1.5 – Halmahera – Closed

[Deleted]

The ground vibrated gently beneath the Prime’s palm. He blinked, optics dropping from staring intently forward through the rain to the mud between his fingers. He waited a moment. The vibration began again, lazily, like the muscle flex of a sleeping animal and Optimus decided absently that if the Dukono volcano was due for yet another volcanic eruption that would, perhaps, solve their problem. The trembling stopped and Optimus looked up again, briefly shaking rain from the edge of helm to precisely no effect whatsoever, resumed his scan of the clearing down the rise.

Their problem was an abandoned mining operation. He suspected it wasn’t abandoned.

//Not picking up any residuals on scans.// The secure-comm was sent over Inter-bot shortwave to his squadmates – Crossfire and Rhinox. Prior to their arrival, NEST satellite surveillance hadn't picked up any activity either. //Energon readings are still viable.//

So, that did not necessarily mean there wasn’t someone still in the area. The issue – and this was always an issue – was making the decision to leave their position to actually clear the mine. He was still weighing how to best go about it. They’d bridged onto a ridge overlooking the entry into the mine shaft at the foot of the mountain. The torrential downpour notwithstanding, visibility was low and prevented their human counterparts providing any aerial support. Additionally, any fresh sign of Decepticon movement had been washed away. So whether there were still soldiers or if those soldiers had fled… Prime couldn’t be certain until, likely, it was too late to do much about it but fight.

//Are either of you picking up anything?//

[Deleted]

Optimus relayed Crossfire's report to Rhinox, who paused uncomfortably, trying to gain as much shelter from the rain as he could from the overhead canopy. It made him nervous to have his sensors so thoroughly muffled by the storm, and if he'd been alone he would have been content to fall back and wait for better weather. But Optimus had decided they couldn't wait, and he was probably right. The Autobots had never been this close to truly crippling the Decepticon war machine, and if the chance slipped by them it'd be a long time before they had another one.

Rhinox shifted, feeling the mud squelch under his pedes. His traction was still pretty good, but the mud's stickiness would hamper his movement in an environment already ill-suited for big mechs moving at high speeds. Irrationally, he wished for Rattrap. He'd be in nonstop complain mode, but he would be far more suited to an environment such as this, able to slip between trees and zip over the terrain-

-The target lock registered almost too late. Rhinox threw himself backward, no thought to his own equilibrium, and the blaster shot that would have skewered his spark bisected a young tree instead. //Sniper!// he snapped to his comrades, and rather than stand up and make himself a target again he rolled over and army-crawled to a dripping outcropping to put his back to it. The sniper had probably already moved from his position, but just in case he calculated the vector the shot had come from and pinged it to Optimus and Crossfire. Then, muttering something that might have been a prayer to Primus or a curse he unpacked his chainguns. Rattrap would have been nice, but Rattrap wasn't here, and Rhinox had taken down his share of snipers. He would just have to make do.

[Deleted]

Optimus had the vectors onboard less than a split-second before reacting. Crossfire’s warning coupled immediately with Rhinox’s given coordinate gave the Prime more than enough time to lock onto the faint energy signature off the weapon discharge, confirm a firing solution and put an energon slug directly into the Vehicon’s upper shoulder as they rose to change position. The force of the shot tore the Decepticon’s armor open and spun them round, striping the foliage instantly neon blue before they crashed into and crushed a swath of underbrush. They lying still in the underbrush, smoking slightly.

The details registered only after he’d fired – light-armored, rotary-frame, likely support-battalion, combat courier classification – and Optimus was moving. Not toward the fallen Eradicon, but simply away from his original position – transmitting the confirmed hit but not a kill to his squadmates as he moved down the ridge to a new position, still at the high-ground but no longer at the upper-most part of the overlook. Vaguely, he regretted not taking Bluestreak with him for this mission, but he’d deployed their sniper with another squad. They’d make due as they were.

//Hostile down. Be advised, enemy was a helo-unit. Be on the alert for their spotter. Rhinox – What’s your status?//

[Deleted]

//Unhurt,// Rhinox responded tersely to Optimus, and listened to the comm chatter.

Optimus took out the sniper, which Rhinox appreciated, and in another minute he saw the telltale flashes of Crossfire's plasma guns. That would be the spotter, then. Rhinox hauled himself to his pedes and headed to the treeline, chainguns pointed skyward. The Eradicons were indeed coming out to defend the mine as Crossfire reported, and Rhinox tried to get an accurate count as they spread out and headed toward the trees. If that's not a full troop of them it's close to it. Against three of us. Not impossible odds. Crossfire seemed to agree, sending a burst of plasma fire that amounted to little more than a distraction into the crowd. Surprised, the Eradicons turned toward the shots, their formation tightening into a cluster as they returned fire.

Now. Rhinox took a step forward, leveling his guns at the cluster. His processor calculated the damage field the chainguns would make, and pinged the data to Optimus and Crossfire with a note saying, in effect, Do Not Stand Here. This is for Team Axalon.

With a roar, Rhinox unleashed hell.

[Deleted]

Rhinox’s chain guns were precisely nothing to laugh about. The jungle greenery shredded in seconds, trees splintering and bursting at their trunks, sending shrapnel blasts of wood out in all directions as the stonework around the mine entry itself chipped and shattered with every slug that missed it mark and struck rock. Some of the Eradicons remained at the mouth of the cave, taking refuge behind an empty loading cart and piles of carted stone. The rest of the troopers were firstly set on the defensive by Crossfire’s flanking maneuver and subsequent small arms fire. They were more immediately scattered by Rhinox’s heavy weapons fire. Those caught in the open were torn apart – light armor going to pieces, screams cut short by chain-gun roar. The ones who reached the forest immediately began a flanking run of their own – firing immediately on Crossfire from the brush.

Optimus, from his position, methodically reset the calibration of his onboard weapons and took aim ‘blind’. He did not have a clear shot per say. He did, however, calculate the enemy’s flight path through the trees and, unhurried, fired three shots into the forest. The super-heated bullet from the Cybertronian weapon sliced effortlessly through the greenery, trajectory unfazed, and blew open two helms and a spark casing.

The troopers still in the mine entrance, Optimus could see, exchanged micro-click looks of panic and the remaining Eradicons immediately changed their plan of attack, withdrawing hurriedly back to the entrance of the cave. Two combat-troopers grabbed one of their fallen teammates and sprinted for the cave while the other troopers pinned the Autobots with cover fire. They were grouping, bottlenecking themselves to give their injured cover. Optimus saw soldiers defending their own. He also saw how he was going to kill all of them.

//One grenade.// The transmission was terse. //When the others get to entrance.//

[Deleted]

Destruction. The smell of weapons fire, far too familiar, mingling with the scent of organic char. Shredding metal. The screams of the dying.

Rhinox hated that he was the source of all this. That he couldn't find any alternative. That in the world he lived in, there was no choice but to kill.

He took a moment to readjust his aim, updating his teammates as to the revised location of the Do Not Stand Here field - and something hit him in the side, sending him reeling to the ground with his chainguns uselessly shredding the foliage overhead. The pain hit a moment later, accompanied by a diagnostic report - inconvenient but not deadly, thanks to his thick armor. He'd be able to move in a moment.

"Got him! Quick, finish him off!"

A moment he did not have. Rhinox rolled, and a short volley of laser bolts peppered the ground where he had been. He heard a curse, and acting on that sound alone, he aimed one chaingun and fired a short burst. There was a cry and a crunch of collapsing metal.

"H-holy slag!" The shooter's unseen compatriot retreated, with far more speed than grace. Rhinox sent another burst after hir, but wasn't sure if he'd hit hir or not. It didn't matter. He still had a job to do.

He staggered to the treeline. Crossfire was handling a small group of them hand to hand, but he was pinned in place. He'd have to clear the way to get Optimus close enough to use the grenade he mentioned. //Copy, Crossfire,// he transmitted, too irritated and in too much pain to feel fatigue. //I'll be there to assist in a moment.// This time he took a moment to scan his surroundings before committing to an attack - no hostile pings close enough to make a difference. He set his jaw, lifted his chainguns, and proceeded to rain destruction down in front of the mine entrance until the Eradicons who weren't harassing Crossfire had no choice but to retreat back toward the entrance.

//All yours, Prime.//

[Deleted]

Optimus had not waited in place.

By the time Rhinox gave the all clear, he was in mobile, in range, and hurling the explosive straight down the throat of the mineshaft. This ordinance was not, in fact, Autobot ordinance. It was one of the many things his team had liberated from the Nemesis during their strike against the ship. Though, this fact was probably lost on the remainder of the Decepticons still in the mine, who had only enough time to register something hitting the upper left-hand curve of the wall above them. The force of the detonation obliterated the entire front of the mine entrance, the shockwave flattening trees and foliage in the immediate area to the ground. The Eradicons were lost entirely in the dust.

Optimus was in his alt mode by then. The moment he released the grenade, he transformed, rubber hitting the ground and vaulting the Prime across the clearing, past Rhinox (injured but not critically, no immediately vital systems knocked out) and directly at the remaining Eradicons still harrying Crossfire. One he just ran over. Or more specifically, the Eradicon opened fire on him to little effect – the trooper’s mounted gun not possessing quite enough kick to penetrate the Prime’s heavy-grade polymer armoring and by then Optimus was plowing into the other Cybertronian, ran over them, and dove into his bipedal mode again.

He transformed at speed, rolling, came to his feet with his right arm blade already swinging at one of Con still firing at Crossfire.

[Deleted]

"Cosmetic damage at best," Rhinox assured Crossfire, patting the blackened section of plating. His self-repair was taking care of the minor injury already, and the pain was only a distraction, not a real warning. Neither of the others had taken any damage at all. Considering the odds they'd been up against, that was no small feat.

Rhinox threw a quick scan over the area, searching not for spark signatures as Crossfire had done but for the telltale electric signatures of traps or security devices left behind. His search came up negative, but he wasn't quite reassured - the entrance of the mine was bleeding forth energy signals from the energon stash, and his onboard equipment wasn't sensitive enough to pick out signs of traps from that background noise. "The immediate area seems clear," he reported to Prime, "but I can't confirm the absence of security measures in the mine. Unless yours or Crossfire's scanners are better than mine...?" He glanced at the entrance, dark and still but for some residual drifting dust kicked up by Optimus's grenade. He didn't think it was wise to go in there blind, but they couldn't leave it unsecured either.

[Deleted]

“No. I am not picking up anything immediately apparent.”

Optimus moved to stand behind Crossfire. His anxieties for Rhinox’s injury were laid to rest by A: Crossfire’s question and B: The engineer’s brusque lack of concern. He turned his own scans across the clearing into the mouth of the semi-collapsed mine. His onboard sensors weren’t designed to pick up much more than any other soldier’s, though he was provided a few non-standard mods he’d been upgraded with over the war. Nothing terribly advanced, however, he didn’t have the processing power to spare for it. It was almost entirely take up by weapon systems, combat programming, the immediately needed.

Speaking of which – he was getting delayed error flags on his HUD. A quick glance down and an experimental flex told him he had half a dozen internal shorts below his right knee and something was jammed in a transformation seam along the wheels set into the back of his leg. He suspected from the Eradicon he’d run down, either a shot they’d gotten off or their armor ripping into something in his undercarriage. Ratchet would disapprove, but it was nothing really.

“I would warrant the explosions likely triggered or damaged any possible traps the Decepticons might have deployed within the mine.” He stopped his scans after a moment to look back at his squad. “We’ll check for survivors, clear as we are able then have Rattrap take a look. His scanners and expertise will be better suited to the task.” He looked back toward the smoking ruin. “No need to take any unnecessary risks.”

[Deleted]

"Tell me about it."

With one last painful scrape of metal on stone, Rhinox stumbled into the chamber Crossfire found. Fortunately there was enough ambient light that Rhinox only had to use his usual visual filters. He stepped forward to give Optimus room to emerge and passed his own scanners over the walls.

"Not many power lines," he observed, following the line of power cables along the walls to where they vanished into a haze of mingled shadows, faraway flickering artificial light, and energon-glow. "And no artificial lights here. They must have been relying on the crystals themselves to light their way. That means the bulk of the mining work was being done elsewhere." He nodded down the corridor to where the artificial lights were coming from. "That'll be the control room. Hopefully the Eradicons keep current maps."