Crouching Headmaster, Hidden Stunticon

Last time on The TRANSFORMERS!! Having cleaned the depths of Crystal City, Omega Supreme saw to his word and gifted both factions with articles he deemed refuse. One of these items was an acient data-pad with -MYSTERIOUS- coordinates to a distant system, with the slight hope of an energon cache! Jetfire has lead an expedition team out into the far reaches of space ... in search of this planet, but what does it have in store for our heroes? And what will the Decepticons have to say about it?

In space, no one can hear you scream. Or so that's how the expression goes, but inside one of the Autobots galactic cruisers; Jetfire can hear Chromedome complain ... that's for sure. The Autobot programmer and hacker, he wears many hats apparently, paces the deck of the craft with the data-pad in hand. "It's surprising that you didn't even -think- to check it's clusters. Otherwise, it would have been clearly evident that you could have bypassed the ACL software by performing a simple cache dump into a temp. Heh." Chromedome whines in a nasal-like tone. "Now that I've done so, you won't have -complete- access to it's data banks. But I've restored enough of it's operational efficiency, it's clientside for sure ... you won't get four 'o foured again." he finishes, with a hidden smirk under the mouthplate. While Chromedome is waxing tech savvy, the crew of the Autobot craft guide it through a cluster of asteriods and banks down towards their destination, the Lygian star system!

Something as big as Motormaster could never hide aboard an Autobot ship, and none of his craven minions could be expected to brave such a crazy mission, so he has to go it alone until the extraction team can link up with him at the waypoint. For Motormaster, undeterred, came up with another way to infiltrate the Autobot mission... hanging onto the outside of the star cruiser with giant ice hooks. Lying flat against the hull, the outward-looking sensors can't see him any more than they can see the ship itself.

Kup pays no mind to Chromedome. He's no egghead. Instead, he just works on field-stripping his musket and checking it over. Following an ancient (well, not to him) datapad to a far-off planet is a pretty typical day's work for an Autobot, all said. Now, if any of them get turned into geisha girls, that'll just be plain weird, but otherwise, Kup thinks he's good to go.

Boombox  is in one of the chairs of the Autobot cruiser in boombox mode, not-so-quietly playing music to entertain anyone who would care to listen. Which is probably just Blaster himself.

At least Jetfire had a console to be busy over instead of actually look at Chromedome while he's rambling on... and to be honest, he'd rather have the comp-tech there complaining than, say, Grimlock stomping around moaning about how long until they get there and break stuff. Or it may just be that the lingo laiden responses amuse me. "Sorry Chromedome, I'm a scientist not a sys-ops specialist. Sometimes sticking needles into things to see what they do is how we work." Chuckling a bit in response he glances up at the monitor as he makes a few minor adjustments at the console controls. "But thanks for the help, it'll certainly make farther pursuing it's contents easier in the future."

Kup shouts, "Blaster, would you keep that consarned racket down!? Some of us are trying to do mission prep!" Kup is old and therefore hates all the music that the cool characters enjoy. He starts to slot his musket back together, satisfied with the check.

"Certainly." Chromedome replies, a faint huff of disappointment in his voice. Sitting at a forward console, the Headmaster plugs in the data-pad into the craft's main terminal and starts running the programs on the vid-screen. "As you'll see, I'm pulling up what little I could of the 'coordinates'. Nothing more than a name really, not sure if it means anything to anyone ... Colduarr."

The gumbie crew in the meantime steer the vessel towards the star system, careful approach to get the right vector for a hasty approach. Never know what's in store, especially with Kup in tow.

Motormaster watches the timer in his HUD slowly count down. He's got to be in position and have the target in his possession by the time the extraction team arrives, or all this will be for naught. Oh, sure, Galvatron will be happy if he gets news about the secondary objective, that being the ostensible reason Motormaster is even on this ridiculous mission. But Motormaster has an entirely different primary objective that only he knows about, and that's the one that matters to him. That's the one that keeps him checking the minutes as they tick by.

Boombox  dutifully turns down his music and then transforms into robot mode. "Coludarr? Nope, never hearda it. Maybe Jazz. Or Kup." Blaster turns his head expectantly in that direction. Boombox  transforms into his Blaster mode.

Kup shrugs and replies, "Eeeehn, I got nuthin'," when questioned about Colduarr. He finishes putting his musket back together, makes sure his crash webbing is buckled properly, and considers himself good for landing.

Jetfire frowns a bit at the name. "I can't say that registers on any of my current astronomical charts either. But a lot of exploration efforts were cut short by the influxes of war so it's possible that's all that was initially reported." He pauses to chuckle a bit as Kup scolds Blaster for his 'racket'. Personally it didn't bother him -that- much when he wasn't working on something delicate, but then again, he's been around Blaster and Jazz constantly for a lot longer. "It would seem that we are getting close. Be on your guard 'Bots, we're walking into literally unknown turf here."

The galactic cruiser's crew receives the exact coordinates of the planet in question, inputting the commands into the craft and steering towards it's location. The ever so slightest feeling of propulsion is felt on the interior of the craft.

Chromedome relaxes back in his chair, disconnecting the data-pad and putting it back into the metal box. "I'll keep at it Jetfire, see what I can't -carefully- extract ... but that's it for now." Once the data-pad is disconnected, the front vidscreen resumes output from the front of the ship. A small blue dot can be discerned in the distance, slowly growing bigger and bigger as the craft accelerates through space.

Blaster looks momentarily crestfallen that even Kup hasn't heard of it (though for Blaster that just means his ever-present smile decreases by a fraction). He nods at Jetfire. "I'll scan for local frequencies, see if I can pick up anything interesting." Please don't let it be country, he thinks to himself.

And that, by the way, is why Motormaster is relying on this risky timed extraction instead of simply calling the extraction team on the radio (that and he doesn't have a long-range radio); he knew that if he was in contact with the other Decepticons the transmissions could give him away. Out on the hull he's entirely silent, and entirely alone.

Jetfire murmurs something under his breath that vagely sounds like "sometimes you gotta break a few eggs" after Chromedome's somewhat pointed response, but keeps it to himself as he settles into his own oversized (compared to others at least) chair to wait. ... It always felt a little odd to him to actually be riding something else landing to say the least, feeling the shift in momentum, the eventual tug of gravity, but not feeling either source -personally-. "Be sure to keep that device safe, yes." Shifts his attention to watch the approaching on the main screen after tapping a few more commands in to the external scanners. Fortunately for their unknown tag-a-long, everything is indeed pointing 'out', ready to take preliminary scans of the atmosphere and other environmental data once they're within range. "I doubt you'll hear much out here, Blaster... but just in case, keep an audial open for possible... distress bacons or such."

Coludarr comes into view very shortly, up close and personal if you will. At first glance, it appears to be a small blue globe of nothing but water. But the discerning individual could pick out the tiny patch of green island smack dab in the lower left quadrant. One of the onboard analysts did, and puts it into magnification on the forward vid-screen.

Chromedome leans forward, after stowing away the datapad. "It appears we don't have much of a choice for landing spots." he chuckles.

Jetfire hmmms. "Unusual to see a planet so predominatenylu liquid, but not impossible," muses the resident space cowboy. Turns partway back to his own console to tap at the sensor controls and get more of them focused specifically on the area around the 'island'. "You're not kidding, Chromedome. Looks like the only reasonably sized 'open' area is on one side of the landmass. And--hrn." Punchs a few more keys. "I can't get a more detailed reading beyond that, there may be some unusual atmospheric activity causing interference as I don't have a full register of the planet's atmospheric contents to try and filter through yet.

Kup waves a hand and dismisses, "Ach, I've been to plenty of water worlds, mercury worlds, liquid methane worlds... They're nothing special. Now, the supercooled plasma worlds? Those are a bit different, but they make some mighty fine throwing knives there."

Jetfire just rolls his optics a bit as Kup starts rambling on about different planetary compositions. "You've been to some very strange places, Kup. And this is coming from the guy who -was- a space explorer," he jokes with a bit of a half-smirk. Meanwhile the cruiser makes its way towards the planet's surface, finally setting down in the one open clearing. "Well then," Jetfire gives Chromedome a nudging swat to the shoulder as he gets out of his chair. "Lets go take a look around, shall we?" Certain someone -other- than the Autobots is probably really happy to get his wheels back on the ground too...

Colduar Entering the planet's orbit above the mainly blue surface of Coludarr, only one beachhead can be spied in the distance for a possible landing site. Southern Beachhead One portion of the continent that isn't rocked by gale force winds or other atmospheric interference is the beach to the south, named simply the 'Southern Beachhead'. The outer edges of the land are surrounded by a large mountain range, their sharp peaks loom overhead; almost exclusively barring land travel. That coupled with the freakish weather patterns makes the Southern Beachhead the only entry point on the island. A large expanse of coarse black sand greets those landing on the shore, it leads into the dark congo with rough patches of vegetation and shrubbery. A sense of foreboding doom surrounds the entrance to the jungle, its mysterious contents leads into the dark congo, a sense of foreboding doom about its mysterious contents.

Motormaster gets a better grip on the hooks as the cruiser descends towards the planet's surface, glad that he's concealed himself on top of the thing instead of the bottom. As soon as it's down Motormaster pulls the hooks out and stows them, sliding down the hull to land with a solid thud. He stays low and sprints heavily across the clearing to conceal himself in the dense jungle, peering through a narrow gap in the foliage.

Kup was a space /soldier/. Still is. It's his job to go to strange planets, meet interesting people, and kill them... as long as they're obstructing freedom, justice, and the Autobot way, ahem. And then, being Kup, he'll tell somewhat embellished stories about the whole thing. Out of the ship, he stretches and remarks, "Ah, good to get my feet back on the ground, though I bet you'd rather not, Jetfire.'

Jetfire laughs a bit as he walks out a few paces. "I've gotten use to having to keep my feet on the ground to be closer to my friends and allies." Nevermind he -was- considering transforming to take a sky eye view of things, but that idea is cut short when they're actually out from the shadow of the cruiser and he actually looks up at the turbulent activity overhead. "... Well, that certainly explains the lack of clear atmospheric scans."

Meanwhile Chromedome is hanging back a bit, unpacking some survey equipment so they don't go wandering into things unprepared looking for this lost mission or whatever it was Jetfire was dragging people out here for. Just because he fixed access to the datapad doesn't mean he bothered to read it... and unpacking would go faster if Stylor didn't keep making him stop to check his reflection in every piece of metal.

Blaster must of stayed on the ship to keep monitoring stuff. And enjoy having it to himself and not have to check his volume, probably.

Motormaster continues to hide for the time being. Now that he's safely down, it's more a matter of waiting for the time in his HUD to count down; take action too late, and he won't have the objective when they come for him. But too early, and he'll be overcome by his powerful and much faster opponents.

Kup stares up at the sky and mutters, "Looks like we're in for nasty weather." He doesn't let that bother him, though. He transforms, as he's a bit faster as a truck, and he asks, "So, any idea where these hypothetical refineries would be, or are they underwater?"

Jetfire frowns a bit, wandering thoughts shifting back to the matter at hand. "The most probably assumption would be at the other end of this landmass... but by the looks of it that means either flying those heavy winds, or passing through the jungle." He turns to look his shoulder to look back to the headmaster computer geek.. err.. specialist setting up. "Well at least this beach looks clear, so we've got a stable base camp. But there's still so many unknown variables to thi.. hmm?" Stopping sharply in mid-comment Jetfire turns the other way, squinting a bit in an effort to zoom in his optics, and then starts walking in that direction. "Wait, I think I saw something." Cue moment of dramatic tension! ... and then realize he's moving in the opposite direction of the lurking Stunticon. Whew.

Motormaster freezes in the underbrush, only his baleful red eyes giving him away. His fingers twitch on the hilt of his sword. If he has to break cover now and try to seize the objective, where would he take it? How would he keep away from the Autobots until the... oh good, he's going the other way. Motormaster relaxes a hair. Jetfire has connected.

Kup turns into a pickup truck, nothing fancy, but he can tell you, there was a day when transforming into anything at all was something special. Cybertruck  dismisses Jetfire's concerns ccasually, "Eh, probably just lurking, vicious wildlife that'll try to tear us limb from limb. It'll be fun!" He trundles off to take a bit of a look-see around the area, but he doesn't get too far off that he can't hear Jetfire and vice versa. Also, he's not very fast.

"There. Everything should be unbundled, no thanks to Stylor getting distract--" Chromedome looks up only to see the other two Autobots already wandering away from the landing sight. "--ed." He huffs, putting his hands on his hips and looking.. well, huffy. But not Huffer, he's smaller and even more grumpy. "Well, fine, go off exploring without telling a mech then while he's working."

"... I don't think so," Jetfire replies softly. But takes Kup's advice and summons his rifle anyways, just in case. "And you have a bizarre sense of fun." Lowering to one knee he grabs some of the overgrown brush and pulls it away. "Definately not an animal, but it's certainly something!" Ditching the rifle again he pulls more and more of the vegetation off the battered old form. "Looks like some sort of signalling device. -Someone- got here... but I haven't seen this make and model of transmitter in vorns."

Motormaster circles the clearing slowly and as quietly as he can manage, moving through the denser underbrush. As he starts turning back to get into a position to watch the target again, he meets a tiger. Or maybe the tiger meets him. It's shaped sort of like a tiger, at least, except for the mandibles and the spines and the gigantic size. It looks at Motormaster. Motormaster looks back at it, clutching his sword tightly and not moving. After a few long moments it turns away and vanishes into the jungle, allowing Motormaster to creep up as close to the edge of the clearing as he dares so that he can see what the Autobots are doing again but from this safer position.

Cybertruck  rolls over to the dreaded, surly... radio that Jetfire has found. He is a little disappointed, inside. How is he supposed to tell a story about the time that he and Jetfire wandered around a strange alien planet and found a... radio? Maybe it's actually a panther disguised as a radio; that would be much better. "Yeah, I've seen factory fresh that make better radios, but it's our style, all rught. Guess we did make it here." "Power cell is long since depleted though, and I don't think it'd of had the range to reach farther than this system anyways." With a sigh Jetfire picks up his rifle and pushes himself back to his feet. "In the end it only adds more questions to the mystery than answers, other than providing that cybertronians -were- here at one point... And justifies looking farther for more answers. Prehaps now that we know someone has been here, Rodimus will be willing to spare a bit more mech-power. Or firepower. That jungle does not look at all pleasant."

Chromedome meanwhile has gotten distracted again.... because Stylor is admiring their reflection in the hull of the cruiser. Oi vey.

Meanwhile, in space: The Despoiler cruises towards Planet Colduar, Dead End and Drag Strip at the helm while Breakdown pokes timidly at their cargo, a hastily-assembled device somewhat resembling a self-propelled astrolabe. There are still styrofoam peanuts rolling around the floor of the cargo bay from where Swindle unpacked it for them. "Are we almost theeere?" whines Wildrider, looking out the window and thinking about opening it to 'fly his hand.' "We'll be there when we get there," Dead End replies, glancing at the timer on the dashboard. It reads 00:00:00:04:51. "Everything in its time."

Motormaster glances at his HUD. 00:00:00:04:45. Close enough. He sheathes his sword and removes a short silver and brass cylinder from where he was carrying it clamped to his other side. This he spikes into the soft loamy floor of the jungle, and hunkers down to have a look at it. It has a large toggle switch marked 'DEPLOY/UNDEPLOY' and another two smaller ones marked 'ACTIVE/PASSIVE' and 'CONTACT/AREA.' He flicks it to DEPLOY and AREA, but leaves it set on PASSIVE for now. It unfolds legs from its sides and stabilizes itself, the upper portion extending to reveal a golden coil of wire which starts to hiss and glow as it gradually warms up.

Cybertruck  points out, "Looks like they tried to run it on solar, but with wacky weather like this, solar's not a great bet. Anyway, that jungle doesn't look too bad, not a notch on Regula IV, I tell you, but I can't blame you for wanting some backup on this."

Jetfire mmhmms. "This whole place is one big unknown still, Kup. You may have a half dozen stories that are similar," he half-teases the Autobot elder as he starts back towards the cruiser. "But I'd rather be prepared as much as possible if we're going to end up mounting an actual exploration to locate what we came looking for."

00:00:00:02:13 gleams yellow in the lower left corner of Motormaster's field of vision. He gathers himself up, crouched like a sprinter. He has to get this right; he hasn't got the mental or manual dexterity to reliably catch a Headmaster like Chromedome if he doesn't have the element of surprise. But soon that shouldn't be a problem anymore.

A glint in the sky reflects the evening sun as the Despoiler, having entered low orbit around the planet, orbits over the hemisphere the Autobot cruiser landed on. "It's time. Hit it," Drag Strip orders. "I'm going to be over here in the... behind this bulkhead," says Breakdown, hurrying away from Swindle's machine. "I'll hit it!" exclaims Wildrider, and gleefully jabs several buttons. The astrolabe starts spinning up, throwing off static electric bolts that crackle against the walls of the shuttle.

00:00:00:01:39. Motormaster's massive grey shape hurtles out of the jungle at the edge of the clearing. Chromedome only has time to look up in surprise, Stylor stuttering out an alarmed yelp before the juggernaut hammers into him, slamming him into the hull of the Autobot cruiser with a resounding clang. "I've got a USE for you," Motormaster hisses through gritted teeth as he squeezes Chromedome into a modified chokehold, to keep his head from coming off and escaping. Lifting the struggling, gasping Headmaster off his feet, Motormaster stumbles back towards the jungle's edge, Chromedome kicking at his thighs. An amber light has come on on the top of the pylon he deployed.

Cybertruck  admits, "It don't hurt to be prepared, but if there's one thing you learn, it's what you didn't think to prepare for that always gets you." Like Stunticons sapping their Headmasters when they aren't looking.

The reflection of something else charging in visible over his shoulder is the only glimps Chromedome gets before he's slammed into the hull of the ship and grappled by the larger Stunticon and getting carried off.

"That's just -so- reassuring.. what the?!" The slam of something into the ship rings out, jerking the scientist's attention away from the conversation. "Is that... it couldn't be!" Atonished but not out of acting, Jetfire breaks into a mad dash in the direction of the fleeing shapes, proving once again to be disportionally fast and agile for someone of his size. It helps that several of the veneirs in his legs fire off, functiong like 'dash jets'. "You were saying something about not being prepared?!" he shouts back to Kup. We've got company!

Motormaster smashes through the jungle, stumbling over a broken tree's stump and falling on top of Chromedome with a grunt. "Too late, Jetifre! This time YOU'RE too slow for ME!" He scrambles to his feet, struggling to move quickly with his awkward burden, and falls again at the foot of the pylon. Planting a knee in Chromedome's back and holding his head on with one hand, Motormaster flips the pylon's second switch to ACTIVE with the other. 00:00:00:00:02. A stroke of lightning beats down out of the otherwise clear sky and strikes the pylon. Motormaster, Chromedome, the pylon and a hemisphere of jungle fifty feet in diameter are gone in an instant, leaving an acrid smell and burning trees in the wake while thunder silences the birds.

Cybertruck  swivels around and trundles along after Jetfire, but he's... really not fast. Is that /Motormaster/!? And what the frakking frag does he want with Chromedome? But they're gone long before Kup has stopped cussing.

Jetfire skids to a stop as the thing goes off, some sort of portable teleportation devi... no time to figure it out now, he mentally kicks himself. "Not getting away that easily, you overgrown Tonka truck." With a growl Jetfire leaps off the ground and transforms and blasts off in full intent of chasing down whatever ship they came with. Unfortunately, the planet has other ideas. As soon as he clears the lower atmosphere that was 'clear' over the beach, Jetfire runs right smack into the turbulent winds that make most of the planet unflyable. It was sheer size and bulk that kept them from hindering the cruiser much. Jetfire may be big, but he's not THAT big. Not to mention his form is a lot less hefty and starts getting rattled around more than he's actually flying straight.

A silent flare in the sky appears, then slowly fades as the Despoiler rockets away from the planet, fleeing into deep space at flank speed. Normally that still wouldn't be fast enough to outpace Jetfire, but for the misfortune with the ionic turbulence! It's probably for the best that it's too far away to see Wildrider giving Jetfire a two-fingered salute through one of the windows in a (newly) depressurized compartment.

Jetfire does finally break the outer atmosphere... but by then the Despoiler is no more than a glint already hitting the depths of space. In space, no one can hear you scream.

They also can't hear you cuss up a storm.