The Search Continues

Dyson Ring - Great Ocean

A sea big enough to swallow whole worlds, the Great Ocean stretches from rim to rim in one titanic expanse of salt water. Great swells longer than the distance from Earth to its Moon roll along its expanse, while continent sized clouds rage in strange patterns above its surface, the lack of a Coriolis Effect creating river-shaped storms unique in all of known space.

From high above, the ocean seems to contain several chains of islands separated by large expanses of featureless water. Closer to the Ring floor, however, the scale resolves itself, and what once seemed to be mere islands are revealed to be huge continents, each grouping the size of a planet's surface laid flat. Those with space faring experience or interstellar charts might find each pattern of land strangely familiar.

This is where their teammates vanished, and so here it is that the Autobots are looking for clues. Of course, the Decepticons still claim this territory, making this area inherently dangerous, but then, that's why there's plenty of back-up.

The investigation is being held on the 1:1 scale 'map' of the unknown planet, Beest, near the area where the monolith was destroyed. Rodimus himself stands in the area, looking at the shattered ruins of the thing, here mostly to provide firepower, but also because, well, it was his head touching it that seemed to set the darned thing off.

Crosscheck is standing not too far from Rodimus Prime as he examines the ruins of the monolith. The expression on his face is rather hard to read but apparently he hasn't found what he is looking for. In his hand, he holds a scanner and he's trying to adjust it to see if he can get any unsual readings. "So gar there is no trace of them... and I mean none at all. Which is a good thing because I can certify that they haven't been disintergrated."

"So yer sayin they aint blowed up then?" Impactor questions, standing a few feet off from Crosscheck. He's got a data-pad in hand and clicking furiously at the screen, but he's not doing all -that- important work here. In reality, he's just back up ... pretending to be useful at the moment.

In the air and not too far from the assembled Autobot is Blades, who is currently flying around the area with a scanning package attached underneath his fuselage. There's a lot of terrain to scan and a lot of better equipped Autobots like Jetfire with the right equipment modules to handle the task, but Blades and a few others are the only available units at the moment. Sadly enough, the Autobots will have to make due with the messy juryrigged sensor package provided by Sci-Tech and the relatively slow travelling speed that the Protectobot aerial warrior offers. "Eeeesh, I think that covers grid A4. You guys got an idea how far you want me to travel, folks?"

Rodimus Prime breaths an audible sigh of relief and gives a faint nod of his head. "Thank the stars," he murmurs, then raises his head. "This was a spacebridge, Blades. They could be anywhere in the galaxy, so I'm not so sure how much good searches will do." Then he looks around at the mind-boggling immensity of an ocean large enough to sink worlds. "Although we really do need to get this place explored some time."

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules rests upon the beach, his brightly colored frame easily visible for miles around no doubt. His cargo bay hatch was open, allowing equipment to be brought in and out as things were set up to look around, some Twisted Sister playing inside.

Crosscheck nods at Impactor, "Exactly. There is not even a subatomical particle left of them. They completly vanished. I am unable to conjecture what happened to them." He keeps doing his thing for a moment while replying to Rodimus, "If this was a spacebridge it is much more sophisticated than anything we can build. Yet this whole ring is far beyond any known cybertronian technology."

Impactor nods once or twice, bringing a hand up to rest on his chin. "I'm not gonna pretend ta be a smart type, but what yer suggestin is that ... maybe it's not where they were transported, but when?" he replies, scratching his head.

Air Raid pretends to be useful as well, trying to help haul equipment around without breaking things. After a few unsuccessful attempts at setting something delicate up, a tech chases him off, so he simply sulks and stands guard. "When?" he perks up.

"That's a bit of a jump, isn't it, Impactor?" Rodimus asks, turning towards the Wrecker leader. "He said they vanished and he couldn't guess where. I mean, granted, weirder things HAVE happened before..." he trails off and shrugs, then nods towards Crosscheck. "Keep looking, though." Then he turns and shouts towards Fanfare, "And Fanfare! Crank it up!"

Oh, look who just stepped out of Fanfare's cargo hold, checking off items on a list. It's Markdown! "Lessee... hm... got the transversal hypercoil... the turboflange... the energon, yes, yes, think we got everything."

Obligingly the TWisted Sister was cranked up a few notches, the tips of his blades quivering with every thump of bass or squeal of guitar now. He's watching Markdown attentively inside his cargo hold, checking his own work it seems "An' the spare ammo, behind the emergency shelters." he drawls in his heavy accent.

"Eeesh, well the egg heads who attached this thing on me said it's supposed to be searching for any signs of technology." Blades emits through his external speakers as he swings around back to where the other Autobots are. The helicopter gradually descends down in altitude before transforming into a standard sized Cybertronian, "Nadda though, boss."

Blades unstraps the sensor module and sets it away before crossing his arms across his chest in annoyance, "Eh, I wasn't here for the whole schbang and all, nor did I had time to read the reports with the assignments that Hot Spot's been putting the rest of us Protectobots through lately, ya. Why don't we just reproduce the conditions that set the whole smegging thing off?"

Crosscheck nods at Rodimus before raising his optics from his datapad to look at Impactor, "...when?...Interesting theory. It is possible even though teleportation is much more likely, especially considering the nature of the Dyson ring." The scientist gestures towards the newly arrived Autobots, "Ha finally! Please, setup that equipment over there. I need to run a gamma scan of the area."

Impactor shrugs, "I dunno ... didn't you say that big black thing was acting all crazy like, then spouted of a intricate message before they were gone?" he asks, tucking the data-pad away and kneeling down to scrape a finger across the ground. The Wrecker leader nods his head at Blades in agreement, looking back to Prime. "The mechs gotta point boss, why not see if we can reproduce the enviroment?"

"Because the big black thing was destroyed, for one thing," Rodimus Prime answers, tone a bit dry. He points over. "The shards are right there." And then he strides over, scoops one up, and bops himself on the top of the head with it with a quiet clang. "And as you can see, not quite the same effect when my head touches it." He tosses that particular shard to Crosscheck.

Air Raid hasn't a single clue what everyone's going on about, only vaguely paying attention for 'breakthroughs'. "Maybe we can just weld it back together," he finally offers, toting something expensive-looking for Crosscheck.

Markdown looks at his checklist, and nods. "Ammo's accounted for, good, good. Alright, time to get to work." Nodding at Crosscheck, Markdown and a few gumbies walk up to a few boxes and begin taking out components. "Ok, let's start setting this stuff. Follow the enclosed instructions to the letter, because this stuff isn't easy to make." He gestures to Air Raid. "Yeah, put that thing on the tripod, Air Raid."

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules remains quiet as he listens to the others, his own thoughts held within him as Twisted Sister ends and Ghengis Khan comes on instead. He hums along to this one, almost losing track of his concentration, watching the waters lap in and out gently on the beach.

Decibel is around helping out with the unloading or the setting up of things, but mostly he's just enjoying the sites. Such a marvel this place is. As he moves about his scanners are running but nothing out of the ordinary is being discovered so he stays silent as he shuffles about.

"Okay, so what's yer idea huh?" Impactor replies, quite ticked off. He doesn't appreciate Rodimus' sarcastic or dry tone, and the eccentric nature of his mannerisms doesn't help the Wrecker leader's temper.

Crosscheck catches the shard thrown at him by the autobot leader, "Indeed that device is in a non-functional state... and I highly doubt we will be able to repair it...we're not even sure of what it is." The scientist looks back at Markdown and thanks him, "Tell me when it is ready." He glances towards Air Raid and adds, "Be careful. There is no time to go back to Cybertron to get a new one." Crosscheck reports his attention back on the shard he's holding, "I would do anything to meet those who built that."

Blades raises an optical ridge as he observes Rodimus Prime's demonstration. The Protectobot's usual reaction to something that doesn't work the way he wants to is usually to strike it harder, and just for a moment there was this peculiar glint in his optics as he eyes the shard and then the Autobot leader's helmed head. Thankfully it was momentary. Blades takes notice of Crosscheck's instructions and sluggishly follows along, setting the sensor module onto one of the makeshift tables on the field and plugging it into one of Sci-Tech portable computer terminals.

"Eeesh, the module's plugged in, bud." Blades reports back to Crosscheck before heading over to the scattered shards on the ground. Reaching down, the Protectobot picks up one of the larger black shard fragments on the ground and studies it with mild interest. "What the frag is this thing anyways?"

"I mean, if they're 'not here,' there's a lot of possible 'not here' to be," Rodimus answers Impactor, annoyed. "Both where /and/ when. It's a big universe, and we've never been outside this galaxy. There are alternate universes. And yes, there's other times. I'm also saying that reproducing the circumstances might be a lot harder than it sounds, but if you have any suggestions, by all means," and now he gestures towards Impactor, as if encouraging the Wrecker to put forth his ideas.

Luckily, Rodimus misses the glint in Blades' optics.

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules hums softly "That's odd." as he turns the music down just a little bit. He maintains his silence except for that remark though, instead listening to the others "Do we know Whar tha black thing came from? " he asks aloud finally.

Eventually, assuming Air Raid places the thing he was carrying where it's supposed to go, Markdown steps back from the device he helped assemble. He gives it an odd look. "Er, this is some sort of scanning device, right? Did you say it uses gamma rays?" Louder, he asks, "Hey, everyone's radiation shielding's been check recently, right? I don't want anyone fritzing out."

Air Raid is being super careful! He gently, slowly twists the expensive-whatsit atop the tripod. "There. Perfect. My shielding's up to date," he declares proudly.

Crosscheck is super busy setting various pieces of equipment but he pauses long enough to explain the basic of a gamma scan, "You don't have to worry about frying your circuits. That scanner doesn't emit any kind of dangerous radiation. In fact space travel is 96.67% more dangerous than a gamma scan." Then he resumes his task. The life of their missing friends weight heavily on his shoulders as he wonders if he's going to be able to find out what really happened here.

"Well, ruling out any possibilities seems rather ... harsh Prime. Thing is, we don't know where they could be ... for all we know, they are gone." Impactor waxes serious for a second. "And it's outta my specialties to suggest a course of action ... I'm just here to help in tha heavy liftin, I'd look to Crosscheck for the inspiration." he continues, sparing a glance to the tech savvy robot.

Rodimus Prime shakes his head and looks over at Fanfare. "We don't even know how long the Decepticons knew about this place without us knowing." He looks around. "I mean... really, look at all this. We're really lucky they didn't get more use out of it than they did." Then he rubs the top of his head, looks back at Impactor, and sighs. "I didn't rule anything /out,/ Impactor. I just said that was a pretty long leap, that's all."

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules says, "Ah must agree with Rodimus on that one, Impactor sir. The most likely theories should be tested first." he rumbles "Huh. So et IS true."

By now Blades is already sitting on top of a rock, his head resting on his right hand that's supported by his leg, "Eeeesh, sounds like we should take over this real estate from the Decepticons, ya?" The Protectobot idles around now, with very little other objectives left to accomplish here in the field at the moment.

Markdown nods at Crosscheck. "Oohhhhh, ok. Well, just making sure. I remember an old buddy 'a mine, Clampsnap, hadn't seen the medic to get his shielding checked out in ages. He got too close to a big radar dish, and it fried him good." He looks about. "That doesn't have much to do with, uh, well, what we're doing here, but you know..."

Impactor grumbles something under his breath, then turns his attention back towards analyzing the broken monolith. Whipping back out the data-pad, he begins a search for like constructs of similar make and substance.

Crosscheck blinks at Markdown, "That must have been a rather powerful radar dish. But that kind of things tend to happen when you skip maintenance cycle." As he finally completes his setup, Crosscheck starts a gamma scan of the area. He remains silent as the results are displayed on a small screen in front of him, "Slag it. Nothing. I can't find anything." The scientist looks at Rodimus, "I fear I can do much more from here... but this thing is huge, perhaps there is archives somewhere else that may contain information about that monolith."

"Huge is understating it," Rodimus mumbles, then looks around. "Well, there's all those other... continents? And that's not even getting into what's beyond the oceans." He stops and looks back at the others. "Do we /know/ what's beyond the ocean yet?"

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules hums again softly, ponderously. A whirring sound fills the air, his wings slowly begining to tilt up as though preparing for VTOL take off.

"Eeesh, looks like a fragging long way off, boss." Blades says as he looks over to the horizon where the nearest ocean is located, "Don't want to be runnin' outta energon half way through." The Protectobots shrugs in defeat before returning to his seat on the nearby rock again, "Where's ol' Skyspy when you need 'em, eh?"

Markdown shrugs. "Well, yeah, it was an orbital defense radar, so on, so forth." He scratches behind his head as he looks up at the sky. "Man. How do you even... build something like this? The kind of budget you'd need.... Wow."

"Right," Rodimus agrees with Blades, looking over at the somewhat strange horizon. The surface they're on is curved /up/ towards the sun, but so huge that it's difficult to see where it happens, leading to an effect that Rodimus finds slightly disorienting. "So when we do look, it should probably be with a shuttle." He looks at Markdown and lowers his arms, shaking his head. "I suspect... I just. Uhm, yeah. I don't know. Maybe it... built itself over the years? Like, piece by piece?" So basically, like Cybertron did.

"So, what do ya want done?" Impactor asks of Crosscheck, a shard of the monolith in one hand and a data-pad in the other. "I'm not a scientist, but I'll give it the ole Wrecker try!"

With a put-put-put prrrraaaap, Fanfare's engines start to turn over and wind up to full power, a downblast of air sending mist and sand away from him in all directions now as the mech rumbles "Ah've gottae move tae higher ground mechs... Ah've sunken ntae the sand." he notes, in explanation. After a few moments though, he still hadn't moved.

"Primus darnit. Ah'm STUCK." indeed, his wheels had all sunken deep into the wet sand, nearly up to his belly frmo his own weight. How do you give a 130 foot wide plane a pushstart?

Crosscheck shrugs, "I'm running out of ideas here. I could spend decades studying this place and I would not learn everything there is to learn about it." He listens to Rodimus' theory before replying, "It is possible... but even Cybertron needed Primus to start the process. Who started it here and why? But that's beyond the point. I'm sure our friends are alive somewhere... but they're unreachable for us. I don't know what to do."

Rodimus Prime can throw a Decepticon leader into orbit on his good days. However, that may not be necessary. "Can you transform, Fanfare? Then you'd just need to walk to a better take-off spot." Then he looks back at Crosscheck, frowns, and shakes his head. "We don't give up," he states, tone severe. "But... we may have to split teams into general exploration and actually... well, working on the problem. But we just... we can't give up." He pauses. "Although if I know those guys, they're working on a way to come /back/, too. If they can."

"Sorry Fanny, drillin' inta tha sand ain't gonna do me or you any good. Yer better off trying ta transform." Impactor yells over to Fanfare, still awaiting an actual order to be given.

"Usually, aye. But all our extra supplies an' ammo're inside me cargo hold." he wobbles a little, clumps of sand pulling up around his wheels "Ah thik ah should get outfitted fer fat wheels, skis, or snoeshoes, aye? " he jokes a little bit, working his way loose slowly. Markdown shrugs. "That's ok, Fanfare, we'll just unload all of that stuff, then it shouldn't be a problem." He gestures to the gumbies, and then he and his little team make their way into the cargo hold to start hauling.

"Oh for-! Don't bother, Markdown." Raid finally gets off his aft and moves to give Fanfare a push-start, pressing on a wing. "You big...fat...flying...bus!" he grunts, digging his heels into the sand.

Crosscheck sighs, "I am not giving up Prime... but I need more data. There is no trace left here that I can detect." He gestures towards his equipment, "We're dealing with something way out of our league here. I'll study it but I seriously doubt the answer is in this area." He makes a pause before adding, "But this place is huge...the answer must be here...somewhere."

"Y'know, it's surprising that we haven't been driven off outta here, ya." Blades comments from his seated position, and gets up upon hearing the reason why Fanfare hasn't yet transformed to free himself, "Eeesh, you'd think with someone as neurotic as Galvatron that he'd do whatever it takes to keep us out of here. They musta lost quite a bit of their higher ups to get this sloppy, eh?"

Blades heads on over to Fanfare's cargo hold and begins assisting in unloading the Autobot transport's cargo hold. It's really the only thing that the Protectobot can do now, he's dead weight when it comes to anything else that might be possibly productive at the moment.

Impactor shakes his head, then moves over towards Air Raid. "Need a hand kid?" he jests, before pushing on the opposite end. "Yah, like he said ... git yer bus aft in tha air!" the Wrecker leader grunts out, pushing against the wing.

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules continues to wobble, his props accelerating further as slowly the wheels were worked loose. He pauses the wobbling though so that some crates could be unloaded 'Puet am ABOVE tha waterline!" he advises in a rumble, before rumbling again "Almost. We're goin' fine now... Ah dun think usin' me JATO bottles'd be a good idear unless necessary. Oof!" he grunts as he's shoved, starting to move forwards. He adjusts the angle of his blades to point more back than straight up, starting to move a little more with each push.

Rodimus Prime nods. "Well, if you need a shuttle assigned to you, you've got it," he tells Crosscheck, then turns to watch the Fanfare spectacle. "How many supplies you got in there? That may be the easier way," then he turns towards Blades and shakes his head. "This place? Come on, Blades, it's huge. This group of islands is as large as many planets, and there's several of them! And that's just this area! Galvatron doesn't have enough people to keep this while ring patrolled! We don't, either! Sure, he might have patrols around, but they'd be spread out so thin, it should be easy to slip through the cracks."

Markdown throws up his hands as he walks back out. "Fine, fine. We'll do this the hard way. Well, it's probably the hard way." He finds another spot on the wing, and shoves. "Hurfff. Yeah, this is the hard way."

The gumbie tech Screwdriver follows Markdown out and starts pushing on the backside of Fanfare. Yelling to Markdown, "You can do it, put your back into it!"

"It ain't HARD! You're just a wimpy /wimp/." Raid blurts, and promptly loses his footing to flop in the sand. He scrambles upright and resumes pushing. "Frag Fanfare, how many coats of paint do you have on!"

"... Three. " the voice rumbles from the jet, starting to roll forwards more and more... then suddenly with a wet, sucking sound the sand releases its' grip on his wheels and he leaps into the air with a startled cry, leaving his pushers pushing mere air.

Screwdriver falls face forward into the wet sand, sinking down a bit.

Markdown yells, "Oh, screw you people! I'm a Hummer, remember! I'm stronger than most Autobots! I just don't believe in, you know, in inefficiency!" Then with Fanfare is freed, Markdown follows suit with Screwdriver, falling down face-first. "Hurft!"

Impactor manages to keep his balance, allowing his stance to widen and compesate for the loss of balance, hands rested on his hips. "What tha? Just like you slack jawed Bots, laying down right after a job gets done." he chastises, pointing towards Screwdriver and Markdown.

Air Raid stumbles forward, but catches himself this time, and spares a hearty laugh. "Hahaha! Hummers are weak." He nudges Impactor to join in on the amusement.

Rodimus Prime covers his face with his large hand and sighs at the spectacle before him. He starts to stride towards them, intent on transforming and /pulling/ Fanfare free, when he gets free without the extra help

Rodimus bursts out with a quick laugh, then covers his mouth, trying to stifle it. "Sorry. Sorry. Uhm." He clears his throat, then looks around. "I think I'm going to explore a bit of the nearby countryside. I don't expect to find anything, but who knows - maybe I'll catch something with an up-close perspective that would have been missed from a distance." Also, he's getting antsy. He turns towards Crosscheck and nods once. "Keep me updated, Crosscheck."

Impactor nudges Air Raid right back, albeit a little too hard for the Aerialbot's lighter frame. "Lightweights, am I right?"

"As you wish Prime. I'll go and get everything ready." Then he heads towards one of the autobot shuttles parked not too far from there. On his way he starts to make a list of everything that he's going to need to explore this place.

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules regains control overhead, wobbling around in midair as he stabilizes. He pulls about, now hovering overhead as he sleuces sideways to land on higher ground now. "Thank ye, Mechs! Ah wouldnae be much good growin' liek a plant!"

Markdown rises up, looking grumpy. He spits out a clump of wet sand. "Yeah. Oh yeah, you're welcome guys. No, I don't mind helping you guys at all. In fact, I appreciate your gratitude so much, that next time you need some heavy lifting done, I might just kick back and chug a cube while I watch *you* guys do it for me."

Frowning, Markdown recalls his experience with the ground. "Huh. You know... something... odd about the ground.." He sticks his "toe" into the mud, as if trying to dig something out.

With Crosscheck's confirmation, Rodimus turns, transforms, and roars off, completely missing Markdown's discovery! :( Rodimus Prime has disconnected.

Markdown raises a brow, his frown deepening as he stoops over to pick up a bottle with a bit of parchment in it. "What the hell could this be?" he wonders aloud as he pulls out the cork, drops the parchment into his hand, and reads it.

Blades returns from organizing the relocation of the cargo containers that were unloaded from Fanfare and totally oblivious to the efforts that the others had to exert to get the large Autobot transport out of its predicament. "Eh... you all look smegging dirty. The heck happened here?" The Protectobot shoots each of the remaining Autobot an inquisitive glance.

Eight Tiny Reindeer and a Gold Sleigh CF-130 Super Hercules watches from his new perch on the hill, Alice Cooper's House of Fire blaring out now

Impactor shoots Markdown a puzzled glance, "Whatchya find there Markdown?" he shouts off walking over towards the mech.

Markdown shrugs at Blades as he returns. "Fanfare's gigantic hull got stuck in the mud, and I had to help push him out while Air Raid and Impactor provided moral support," he says with a raised brow. He holds the map up to Impactor. "I dunno, but there's some kind alien writing and a map. I don't have any idea what it means, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say they're directions to this 'X," right here." He points at such an X on the map.

"Treasure map? Right. I've seen everything now." Impactor laughs, wandering back up the beach and striking out to explore a bit more. "Treasure map, that's wild. Hahaha, what's next ... a decoder ring?" he chuckles to himself, wandering out of view.

Markdown puts on a perplexed look. "Hell, I don't know. Could be in the next bottle. And maybe if we're really lucky it'll translate that text into Cybertronian. But really, the only way we're going to know what this is if we find this island and go to the spot indicated."

"Eh, looks like a damned trap to me." Blades speaks with overwhelming amounts of suspicion before walking away, "Eeeesh, looks like I'm due for another patrol run around here. I'd be smegged if I let ourselves get caught unaware by them slagging 'cons." That said, the Protectobot leaps into the air and transforms into his alternative mode before flying away.

Markdown waves to Blades as he flies. "Well, your loss! Or our loss, who knows!"