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“Sigma!”
The curse came from the depth of a worn-out cargo ship. It’d seen better days a long, long, time ago. In the engine room, a blue and purple mech knelt, elbow-deep in one of the two reactors. His painting was dull, splattered with organic grime. His servos, though careful, were inexperienced and slow.
“I’m not a fragging engineer!” He growled.
Gently as he could, the boxy framed mech twisted two frayed wires back together. The rubber that should have been coating them had melted off--probably do to the all-around terrible insolation the ship had and its proximity to the engines--and the exposed copper chewed through by space rats.
A sharp crackle and he yanked his servos out, smoke rising from the digits’ joints. Rolling onto his back, scorched servos cradled against his chassis, curses began to fly.
“Frag it! Sigma! It slagging burns! Glitch! Glitch!” As he ran out of curses the talking dissolved into grunts of pain. The electrical shock that came when he’d accidentally bumped into another bundle of unprotected wires had crackled through his digits and up to his elbows before being dispelled. Gingerly lifting a servo for inspection, he tried to wiggle the digits. They shuddered back and forth. He’d definitely blown some fuses. “Frack.”
Rolling over, servos still cradled to his front, he climbed to his peds. Resolutely, he turned from the room, leaving the already crippled reactor to die on its own time. Even if he really had the knowledge to repair the damage caused by the rats, he was in no condition to do so.
It was dark in the cockpit when he settled into the pilot’s station. One and a half rectors weren’t enough to run all the ship’s functions and power her onward. Already, much of the back lighting for the controls had gone out. If he allowed the engine to continue pushing them onward, it wouldn’t be long before more important functions began shutting down.
With a groan, the filthy mech placed his burned servos on the controls and set about disengaging the engine, letting the cargo ship drift. With the thrusters down, there was no need to keep the pilot’s station up and running. That too was powered off. And the cargo vessel floated along, dead to the outside universe.
⇎⇎⇎⇎
“Don’t touch that.” Crankcase’s tone was caustic as his personality as he guided the W.A.P. though yet another debris field. The average Cybertronian vessel--if it were truly worth of space travel--didn’t need such careful piloting. But since when had any of the Scavengers been normal?
“I wasn’t touching anything.” Misfire griped from his seat next to a console that hadn’t worked since Alpha Trion started growing a beard. The purple jet kicked his pesd over the scuffed floor. “Not that it would really do much. I sure can’t do anything that hasn’t been done before, my dear cranky, mec--Ow!”
Weary of his fellow’s words, the navigator’d stomped on the end of the loss floor slat that ended just under Misfire’s seat. With a cry of shock and an exclamation of pain, the growing chatter ended. Grumbling, Crankcase returned his focus to keeping the W.A.P from losing the rest of her plating in the floating space trash.
The blissful silence lasted for all of two minutes.
“Crankcase?”
A grunt.
“Crankcase, I have a question.”
“I don’t have an answer.”
The silence returned and Crankcase dismissed the interruption as the jet’s short attention span.
“Crankcase, I’m no Spinister, but this light’s been flashing for like five minutes now and I’m starting to get twitchy.”
The stout mech finally turned from the main controls. They were reaching the end of the debris. “What light? What did you touch?”
“Nothing!” Misfire throw his servos up as if to prove they hadn’t been involved with the green diode that now blinked innocently on a mostly working console. “It just started all on its own. Honest!”
For a moment, Crankcase stared at the light, dredging up from his muddled memory exactly what that light was for. What was it again?
“Misfire,” his words were more demanding, less caustic. “Go get Krok. He needs to see this.” Crankcase turned back to the controls, bring the W.A.P to a standstill.
“Why should I? You’re not my boss.” Misfire questioned, no closer to the door than he’d been before the order.
“Because there might be a ship to scavenge.”
That was all it took. The jet ran from the bridge, whooping as he searched for their commanding officer.
The dark blue navigator let a grin slide across his mouth. Scavenging sure would take some of the monotony out of being part of the crew of literally a flying bucket of bolts.
⇎⇎⇎⇎
The W.A.P could run only a basic scan on the ship they found drifting in the asteroid field. From all appearances, it was dead: no engine function, or grav. generator. That was as much as the W.A.P. was capable of telling them about the cargo ship.
“Listen up.” Krok stood before the five members of his unit. “The ship seems abandoned, but keep your guard up. We don’t know who owned it or what could have been on it.”
Crankcase huffed. “Going by our luck it’s going to be another galactic council trap.” The murmured was just loud enough for everyone to hear.
The short, tan, mech standing next to him shivered, hugging himself. “Oh, I hope not.” He turned his goggled gaze toward the ship’s captain. “Could we maybe just pass this one by Sir? What ‘til there’s something a little . . . safer.” A nervous, ephemeral, smile flitted around his mouth plates.
He squeaked when large servos landed on his slim shoulders, patting him heftily. Looking up, he saw the unit’s doctor looming above. “Don’t worry Fulcrum.” It was hard to ignore the simplistic words.
Krok reset his vocalizers. The room feel silent again--except for the jet humming in the corner. “Stick to your pairs, stay alert, keep your comms open, and your grav boots on. Let’s move out.” With that, the stout captain opened the airlock, stepped across the short connection tube, and into the cargo ship.
⇎⇎⇎⇎
“Does anyone else think this is the least foreboding ship we been on since picking up pinhead? Am I the only one thinking that?” Misfire asked, standing in the middle of the engine room, Crankcase just a few feet ahead of him, disconnecting the still mostly charge power cells. “No organics, killer turbo foxes, or funky gravity; this place is awesome!” He’d even found five vials of highly concentrated highgrade (they were probably for mixing in with low grade, but--hey--highgrade’s highgrade!).
Crankcase huffed, sliding a power cell toward the jet.
“What?” Misfire easily picked up the cylindrical container. “You don’t agree with me? But then, you don’t agree with anything. Do you. Nope just cranky-o’ Crankcase. That’s you.”
“Look around you.” Crankcase moved onto removing the power converters.
“I know right?! We should just move everything from the W.A.P. over here! This ship is like totally still working! Other than, you know, being powered off.”
“Yeah.” The pilot/mechanic/all-things-ships-specialist leveled a glare up at his companion. “Why would someone abandon a ship like this?” He pointed at another piece of the ship’s power system. “The reactor’s shorted, but that’s an easy fix. So why,” he turned back to the jet,”why would someone abandon this ship?” He stared crossy at Misfire, who was giving him a very perplexed look.
“Well, when you say it like that . . .” The purple jet was beginning to shift from ped to ped, optics flicking around the dark corners of the engine room. He was starting to agree with Fulcrum about the whole not being on the ship.
“Exactly.” Crankcase returned to his work.
⇎⇎⇎⇎
Spinister happily dug through the shelves of medical supplies that he’d stumbled upon. His small companion, Fulcrum, stood next to him, barely big enough to hold up the crate the unit’s doctor was dropping medical equipment into, seemingly at random. He was quite happy, really. None of the doors had back talked him yet, the lights had cooperated after only a few punches, and now this cornucopia just asking to be taken back to the W.A.P. What more could he as for?
Nervous sounds coming from just under his elbow. In an instant, Spinister dropped the spark inhibitor he was examining, pulled out his pistol, aimed down, and prepared to fire. Then, he looked.
His plasma pistol was aimed squarely at the space just above Fulcrum’s goggles. The tiny technician trembled, nervous sounds abating into a fearful silence.
“Oh.” Spinister lowered his gun. “Must have scared them off.”
Fulcrum didn’t dare ask for clarification. Spinister turned away, attention drawn to a nearby desk holding an interesting array of refurbishing tools. Cautiously, the K-con stepped after him, crate of newly acquired tools blocking most of his view.
Interested, Spinister picked up a wire diffuser. A light was blinking on its handle. He knew that meant something. What could it be? Why was that light flashing? Hey! Spinister glared at the offending tool. It had no business being on!
The the events that happened next occurred almost simultaneously.
Spinister smashed the tool on the table.
Fulcrum, shrieking, pushing the crate away.
And a gun was loudly cocked behind them.
Not necessarily in that order.
“Turn around slowly. Very slowly.” The wielder of the scattergun ordered.
As the pair of expropriation specialists did so, they found themselves confronted by a filthy, blue and purple-ish, mech. Because he lacked grav boots, the stranger floated just above the floor. In the moment between fear and abject horror, Fulcrum wondered if that was why the mech could catch Spinister and himself so totally unaware.
“I’m only going to ask you once,” the mech held the short and stout gun at shoulder height. “What are you doing here?” The tone was hard, but his words trembled.
Both Scavengers stared blankly back at him.
“That’s not a good way to use a scattergun.” Spinister finally said. “Very unsafe. Shoulder and back struts’ll take too much force. Move it to your hip.” The doctor nodded sagely.
The mech was even more stunned than Fulcrum, who at least got his vocalizers working. “Why Spinister, why?! Don’t tell him how to kill us better! We don’t want that!”
The big ‘copter shrugged. “It’s hard to pull a trigger with blown circuits.” He replied, as if it explained everything, made it all better. “He won’t do it.”
“You don’t know that!” The technician insisted, wringing his skinny hands.
The mech--possibly still--holding them at gunpoint, looked totally baffled as he tried following the argument. Finally, he gave up. “Stop talking!”
Fulcrum froze and Spinister turned his head to better face the interruption. He’d had just about all he could stand of the mech trying to order him around--that’s Krok’s job and Krok’s job only--and the scattergun was giving him the evil eye. Jumping forward, he pulled the weapon from brittle hands, sending it drifting up to the ceiling. Spinister grabbed the mech’s shoulder before the mech could try escaping.
“Don’t hurt me!” The mech cried, bringing scorched arms up to protect his face.
Spinister looked totally baffled. Him? Hurt someone that needed medical attention? Never. “Comm Krok.” He commanded of the little tan mech still over by the desk.
“I don’t have a comm.” Fulcrum replied in annoyance, fear much less now that the threat was neutralized. Turning his head, Spinister gave his companion a considering look, as if wondering whether he was with straining the right mech. “I’ll go get him.” The technician squeaked, dashing out of the room.
With that taken care of, Spinister turned back to the mech in his hold, pushing him down to side on the ground.
“Please, don’t hurt me.” He reiterated.
That again? Spinister rolled his eyes. How many times did he have to say he wouldn’t do something for others to believe him? Oh, wait, he hadn’t said he wouldn’t hurt the mech. Woops. “Just looking at your burns.” He assured, patting the mech’s compact helm. Pulling an arm up by the elbow, the doctor closely examined the electrical burn patterns, keeping one servo on the mech’s shoulder to insure he stayed on the ground.
Fulcrum came running back into the room, Krok and Flywheels soon followed.
“What is this?” The Scavengers’ commander demanded, looking at Spinister and the stranger. Fulcrum had almost literally run into him, jabbering—almost as much as Misfire—about Spinister and a gun and oh-Primus-just-come-right-now. From the K-class’s panic, Krok expected something much worse than this: at least more energon. “Who is this mech?”
The ‘copter tilted his head, releasing the arm, and giving his patient an inquiring look. “Well? Who are you?”
The dirty mech reset his vocalizers, eyes flicking to the insignias the scavengers wore. “Ambulon. I’m a . . . Decepticon.”
Krok stepped closer, overbearing officer-ness swelling to fill the room. “And where is the rest of your unit? Where is your commander?”
Ambulon glance away. “They . . . died, sir. Back on Tebris III.” The blue and purple mech straightened his back.
“So, you are alone.”
“Yes sir.”
Krok considered the ill-kempt mech, red eyes narrowing. “You can’t pilot this ship on your own Ambulon, not with your servos the way they are.” Said mech quickly hid his servos behind him. “You’ll come with us.”
Ambulon’s eyes widened for a moment before his face set back in to a blank slate. “Thank you, sir, but I’d prefer—”
“That wasn’t a request.” The officer stated. “You are come with us.” To his sides, Spinister and Flywheels loomed, large frames forming an imposing wall.
“Yes, sir.” Ambulon’s helm lowered.
Spinister huffed, grabbed Ambulon’s shoulder and headed for the door. Fulcrum followed them with concerned eyes.
“What’s he gonna do?” The now-no-longer-newest-member of the W.A.P.’s crew.
Flywheel shrugged, walking over to the crate floating slowly across the room.
“Who? Spinister?” Krok looked after the doctor. “Probably give Ambulon medical attention now he’s part of the unit. Nothing too big.” The officer nodded, striding out the door. “You and Flywheels finish up here, then come back to the W.A.P. and we’ll go.”