//------------------------------// // Chapter One: Crashing: Bad // Story: Transformers: Deep Space Exploration Team // by TcogArchitect //------------------------------// Published November 4th, 2012 Chapter one: Crashing, Bad The ship hovered in the glow of a moon, in the orbit of the latest world it had come across. It had been to many worlds, some inhabited, some very dangerous. Inside, a being made of metal stood at a control panel, unmoving, waiting for the scanners to finish. His body was painted bright yellow with green stripes and he had large, forward-pointing, horizontal tubes for shoulders while wings were attached to his arms. His head was covered with small, scale-like metal plates, which alternated between green and yellow to create a checkerboard pattern. The screen suddenly beeped, and a new image of the planet below appeared. The screen traced numerous lines across the surface of the image, creating dividers between land and ocean, and highlighting various natural formations. The metallic being that had been staring at the screen touched a button, and the image of the planet shifted to one side as categories and numbers appeared on the other. Skybreaker had been on the Star Runner for about half as long as the ship had been in service, but the readouts he was currently looking at were unlike anything he had seen before. There was intelligent life on this planet, but very few artificial structures in comparison to most planets with sentient beings on them. Also, there were several different types of intelligent life, making this planet even more unusual. It was a relatively small planet, with low gravity and a thin, dense atmosphere. But that is not what had captured the relatively young robot's attention. It was the fact that the planet was practically covered in Energon that had really surprised him. In all his travels, he had never even heard of a planet with that much raw Energon. But now, here one was, just below his feet. He quickly moved across the ship, towards the bridge. Rather than take the elevator, he turned towards the stairs, jumping into a luge position as he transformed. His feet extended past his legs, allowing them to turn away from each other and connect into a long, pointed fuselage as his entire upper body tilted forward and his arms folded up into his shoulders, allowing the engines that made them up to ignite as his thruster pack realigned itself to add more propulsion. He rocketed up the staircase, returning to his robot mode in midair to come screeching to a halt outside the door to the bridge. It split down the middle and opened to either side, and his three comrades looked at him expectantly. "Well?" said Dark Lance, the commander. He was slightly larger than Skybreaker, and was colored a dark blue with black trim. A pair of flattened jet engines laid against his back, layered with directional flaps over and under them. Nestled between the two engines was a bladed shield and his signature lance, from which he derived his name, while a sickle hung from the armor plates attached to either side of his waist. His face was framed by a large fin on either side that swept upwards to a point, giving the illusion of ears, while on top of his head sat a battle mask, etched with two large fangs designed to intimidate foes. "What did we find?" "We found the mother load." he replied, "The entire planet is practically covered in Energon." "That's great!" replied Burnout from her seat at the environmental controls and status feed. She was a light brown, with white and dark brown trim and highlights. Her head was a light cream color with a brown crest that swept back past her head, and her left arm was almost completely covered by a large, out-of-place gauntlet that held her medical tools. "We can finally get enough to keep us going without worrying about how much is left." "It won't be that easy." said Bunker, a bright white male who had a blue cloak hanging from each shoulder, allowing the large spike that was pointing straight up on his lower back to be easily seen from his place at the ship's helm. His face was mostly concealed underneath a white, slitted battle mask that pushed forward along the horizontal middle, giving the sense of a face without actually seeing it, though, the top half was pushed up slightly at the moment to reveal his optics. The mask pulled back as it got higher, coming to a decorative point about seven inches above his head. "Don't forget that long-term exposure to large amounts of raw Energon like this is also capable of putting us into stasis lock. We'll need beast modes in order to spend any substantial length of time down there." "Also," Skybreaker said, "the planet has multiple sentient species. It will probably be more difficult to gather the Energon on this planet than it has been in the past." Dark Lance sat silently in thought for several moments. He and his team had been sent out into the cosmos to discover and befriend new life forms, leaving one of the many protoforms in the ship's storage bays behind at each friendly planet as an ambassador, protector, and researcher. Since then, however, their mission had changed. After the Decepticons had started the Great War which destroyed Cybertron, Dark Lance and his crew had not just been looking for new allies, but also new sources of Energon, and a new world to call home. The planet below had more than enough of one of these objectives, but the fact that there were sentient life forms already living there made the chances of this becoming their new home planet mathematically negligible. However, the Energon reserves on the ship were running out, and they couldn't afford not to at least land and try to make contact. Before he could give his orders, though, a huge explosion rocked the entire ship. Outside, another ship had appeared from behind the planet's moon, and had fired on the Star Runner before they were detected. The second ship's commander smiled. "Direct hit. Fire again!" he ordered. A second bolt of energy whizzed through the vacuum, hitting the now-tilted ship on its underside, causing a large panel to come loose and hang limply in space. Inside, Skybreaker took his seat at the ship's gun controls, activating the auto-turrets, and powering up the primary cannon. Taking quick, precise aim, he began to return fire at the other ship, having anticipated his leader's orders. "Damage report!" Dark Lance yelled over the thumping of the guns. "The primary hangar bay has been breached, and we don't have power in the main starboard engine!" Burnout replied, watching her screen for any new alerts as the ship rocked violently again, and the lights flickered. "Bunker, start a landing run, I'm going to see what I can do about the loose panels!" As Dark Lance got up to head to the hangar, Bunker started hitting buttons and switches, the years of simulations, practice, and experience allowing him to begin the landing procedure before the order was even completed. Running toward the airlock, Dark Lance turned on his comm link. "Burnout, what's the update?" he queried. "Not good," the medic replied. " We don't have enough power to do a proper landing, and the hangar panels won't hold during reentry." "Scrap." Dark Lance muttered, now at the airlock. Opening the outer door, he jumped away from the ship, his legs turning to face away from each other before his feet flipped up, the heel spurs in back becoming exhaust ports for the ion repulsor engines in his legs, which folded up to a more compact position. Simultaneously, his chest plate extended away from his body and rotated upwards, the sensory array located there coming to life as his robot head was concealed and rendered useless. His shoulder guards then folded down along his arms, covering them completely before they stuck straight out, his chest separating itself and turning downward so that his arms now pointed towards his feet, allowing the hydraulics of his jet mode's neck to move down and connect to his abdomen. His lance and shield flipped up onto his alt-mode head as his back thrusters splayed out to either side to form a pair of forward-swept wings. The last pieces to move were the panels that held his sickles, which moved to his back and connected with each other before flipping to his rear to become vertical directional panels. He then flew to the hangar's outside to get a better look at the broken panel. Burnout was right, there was no way he'd be able to fix the damage during the firefight sufficiently for it to stay attached during reentry. Changing back to his robot mode, he magnetized his feet to the hull, and quickly considered his options. Attempting to use himself as a decoy would only ensure their destruction. A head-on attack would yield similar results. He couldn't fix the damage under current circumstances, and the ship wouldn't be able to outrun its attackers. That left one option. Re-activating his comm, Dark Lance began issuing orders. "Skybreaker, use a missile to take out their engines. Bunker, roll the ship so the hangar is facing away from the planet. Burnout, depressurize the hangar. I'm going to jettison the protoforms into orbit. Hopefully that will keep them out of Decepticon hands until we can fix the damage." Without response, his orders were carried out. He saw the missile streak away from the ship, pass the other, and turn around just as a cloud of gas came out of the hangar and the ship started to tilt further. Within seconds, Dark Lance was at the hangar control pad, putting in directions that would be copied and used by the protective stasis pods to keep themselves in orbit. He then raced through the jettison procedure, checking each of the dozens of pods for any flaws or damage as the Star Runner was hit again and again by the enemy ship's cannons, shuddering from the impacts. Once he was satisfied with the state of the pods, he went to the inner most wall and turned to look at the broken door which had been jammed into place by blaster fire. Firing his rockets after propelling himself off the wall, he stuck both arms out in front of himself, curling his hands into fists and bracing for impact. He slammed into the door, causing it to burst out into space and disappear from sight. He then returned to the control panel, and pulled the ejection lever. All at once, the pods moved forward from the walls, lining up neatly before being sent careening out the hole where the door used to be by the slingshot mechanisms in the floor. Dark Lance watched them fly out, and then right themselves using compressed air as the onboard computers took control. When the last pod was safely away, he returned to his jet mode, and flew out to see what else had transpired while he had been dealing with the protoforms. What he saw was carnage. The other ship was now helplessly listing towards the planet, its engines all but useless. His own ship was not doing much better. Large holes and scorch marks covered the surface of the once-pristine exploration vessel, and it, too was now caught powerlessly in the planet's gravitational pull. Both ships, however, refused to go down easily, and were still firing all of their weapons at each other. He hurried back to the airlock, and once inside, returned to his companions, calculating his next move. When he got there, he could hardly recognize it. Panels had been knocked loose by the shockwaves, causing the wiring inside to float lifelessly down into the room. His allies were still at their places, Bunker trying desperately to get the ship back under control, Skybreaker concentrating on his targeting screen with a look of grim determination, and Burnout tapping furiously at her keyboard, trying to get the vessel's self-repair functions to work, while alerts constantly flashed onto her screen, blinking red to tell her of the new problem. Dark Lance knew full well how this fight would end. His mechanical eyes clicking back on, Dark Lance realized that he was still alive. Sore and disoriented, but alive. He was lying on his front on the floor of the ship, his head looking across the room at his own command chair. He moved his body to get up, but although everything was working properly, he couldn't move. He quickly realized that this was due to a large beam from the ceiling laying on top of him. Knowing now what was on his back, he put more power into his arms and legs and pushed off the ground, the beam sliding off his back to return to the floor. He looked around. Burnout was facedown on her console, her arms hanging limply at her sides. Skybreaker was on his back, the chair of his station having broken under the massive stress of the combat. Bunker was lying next to his seat, a large dent in the controls where Dark Lance assumed he had hit his head and blacked out on impact. There were a couple of small flames in parts of the bridge, telling him that he had not been offline for long. He then felt a small buzzing sensation in his fingers. The first sign of high levels of Energon radiation. Ignoring the inconsequential fires, he moved to the large holographic display in the back of the room behind his command chair, clearing it of debris before pressing a button. The panel beeped cheerfully, and Dark Lance quickly started typing in commands, feverishly hoping that the computer's equipment was still intact enough to do what he needed. When he finished, there was a series of clanks and whirrs as the display split open to reveal a small, round object with an antenna on top, a pair of small, folded up wings, and a satellite dish on the bottom. ^Good, Teletraan six is still operational,^ Dark Lance thought, seeing that the probe was still in working condition. ^Now to start looking for some new forms.^ He quickly pressed a few buttons, and the probe launched into the air, its wings unfolding and catching it before it hit the ground. By this time, there were also small, silvery streams of what looked like liquid metal coming from several points in the console. Dark Lance payed them no mind, since he knew they were nanobots which would move through the ship, repairing what they found. Teletraan six then flew out through a hole which had opened in the ceiling, and Dark Lance turned back towards his unconscious crew. He quickly started to drag them, one by one, out from their places of rest, then picked them up and carried them into the next room, placing each into a different chamber which then closed around them. When he was done, he returned to the holographic display, hoping that Teletraan six would be back soon. He could now feel the Energon buildup in his circuits from the radiation, making him slower and more worried that he would go into stasis lock before Teletraan six returned, dooming them all. His fears were quelled, however, as the hole in the ceiling opened once more to admit the probe back into its place within the holographic display, which then returned to its normal state and proceeded to show him images of various creatures from this world. He quickly scanned through them, and chose four which looked almost as if they had evolved specifically so his team could use their forms. They were all small horse-like creatures, but they had differences between them that made it easy for him to pick which one would go to which member of his team. The first was plain, and looked almost identical to the horses on Earth. It wasn't quite the same as what he had seen in the records for that distant world, but it was impossible not to see similarities. He assigned it to Burnout, since she had the fewest accessories, and proceeded to the next, the name of which escaped him, but had the same body, except for the addition of a pair of wings which had a strange structure that appeared able to bend and shift in ways that most winged animals would find impossible. He gave it to Skybreaker, an obvious choice since he was the team's scout. The third creature, a unicorn, had a single, spiral-patterned horn jutting from its forehead instead of wings. He decided to give this form to Bunker, reasoning that the white Autobot's spear would be disguised well as the horn. The final form that Teletraan six had found he did not recognize, but it had both a horn and wings, making it perfect for Dark Lance to carry his weapon without having to sacrifice his ability to fly. Once he was done, Dark Lance moved back to the second room, just as mechanical sounds began to emanate from the first pod, indicating that the process of modifying their bodies for their new beast modes had begun. He stepped into the last pod, which then closed, and waited for the machines to finish their work.