Chapter Text
[Ship's Status Report]
Energon stores: 13%
Fuel supply: 22%
Core integrity: 46%
Hull integrity: 37%
Shields: offline
Krok had been staring at the numbers for almost five minutes now. He ran the report again, as though he might, by sheer force of will or desperation, spur the percentages to tick higher. It was a lost cause, of course. No matter how long he fixed his gaze on them, no matter how many times he refreshed the feed, they continued to blink that same angry red.
The colour was a warning, a reflection of the harsh reality they'd found themselves in. It was also a taunt—a reminder that if things had gotten this bad, it was because he’d let them.
Krok crossed his arms, as though to ward off the portent on screen. He leaned back in his chair and it protested with a long, pitiful creak—as abused and worn out as the rest of the W.A.P. He ran the scenarios in his head again, cross-referencing them with the report until they blurred together and his processor swam with frustration.
Not for the first time, he cursed their rotten luck. That run-in on Khre had been the last thing they’d needed. They’d lost forty-six percent of their hull integrity running from the better-armed pirates, and burned too much of their reserve fuel in the jump that’d finally shaken them. It might not have been so bad, if the encounter hadn’t followed up on a spectacularly poor series of salvage runs: the rotten energon on Achedes, the promising haul on Tio-6 that’d fallen apart in their hands when the corrosion set in. Not to mention the tight-fisted smugglers on Patan, who’d decided they’d sooner put bullets in their heads than cut a fair deal.
This was bad, even for them. Krok didn’t need to look at the numbers to know that they were barely scraping by.
He closed out the report and reopened his game of fullstasis instead. It wouldn’t do anything to change their odds, but it might calm the maelstrom that had begun to form within his spark-chamber.
It was his move. Krok shored up his pieces’ defenses, and as the W.A.P.’s computer calculated its response, turned his thoughts back to the situation.
The crew wasn’t handling it well, that much was obvious. Low morale was breeding ill-tempers across the ship. Crankcase couldn’t speak to anyone without turning it into an argument. Fulcrum, on the other hand, had taken to hiding in his room most of the time. Spinister had become even quieter than usual; he stared off into the distance and polished the implements in medbay with such frequency that Krok was beginning to grow concerned. Even Misfire—the most amiable of the bunch—had begun to pick fights with the others over inconsequential things. He hadn’t suggested they play Shoot Shoot Bang Bang for weeks.
And as for Grimlock…well, at this point, they were all keeping their distance.
The computer took one of Krok’s soldiers. He returned the favour, and then finished setting up a maneuver that would give him a clear shot at the win. The program was getting predictable, he thought. He really ought to up the difficulty.
This wasn’t the worst-off they’d ever been, but it was close. Since leaving the Lost Light they’d all but had to abandon their mission to help out wayward Decepticons. At the moment, they could hardly take care of themselves. Krok found himself increasingly glad that Nickel and Cons had elected to spend more time at the library on Droth, solely because he wasn’t sure they’d have made it with two more mouths to feed.
Krok would do anything in his power to keep the crew from sinking to rock bottom, but the weight of that responsibility was like an anchor, dragging him down faster than he could swim. And he worried that he wasn’t strong enough to ferry them to safer waters.
The computer took the bait. A second soldier went up in a cloud of digital smoke, and its sacrifice opened the path to victory. Krok moved another piece. One step closer.
He’d set them on a course for Irus-12. It was far, and things would be tight. Tensions would come to a head as meals grew scarcer, and their collective patience was likely to thin to a fragile thread by the end of the trip. But if they rationed, and didn’t take any unnecessary risks, they’d make it. How they’d get food and fuel once they touched down in the spaceport was a problem for another day.
The computer hadn’t caught on to his gambit. With a burgeoning sense of triumph, Krok moved in for the kill. One more turn and it would be game.
The program made its move—a complex maneuver that pierced through a small hole he’d left in his defenses and struck right at his Prime. Fullstasis read the screen in cheery green script.
If he’d had any teeth to grit, Krok would have cracked them. The premature sense of victory turned to ash in his chest, a thick soot that further blackened his mood. He picked up what remained of his ration, and for a split second he was seized by the juvenile urge to tip the last mouthful of energon into the console and watch the program sputter and go dark.
But they couldn’t afford the damage, or the waste, so instead he opened his wrist intake and let the gummy liquid slide down the hatch.
Beneath Krok’s chassis, the storm clouds continued to gather.