Lockdown shakes his head.
“I’m here for the artifact,” he says. “Not as exciting as a live quarry, but the pay’s good.”
The cannons adjust themselves and sweep their beams toward Gatecrasher, while Nova fires another shot from his fusion rifle at the Decepticon.
“I can do this all decade!” the former Prime calls over the roar of his weapons.
“Oh… Uhm… Strika just tried to pull the key out of it’a place. Spoiler: it didn’t work.”
“I know it’s all fun and games!” Gc called, dodging the blasts, but he was beginning to tire. “But I bet you could defeat me hand to hand!”
The Wrecker was beginning to lose his patience. He lets go of the controls and activates a communication link. “Scorchlock here, I got a big gun waiting for Nova.” He said through the link. “If you would maneuver yourself so that Nova was in front of the cannon, I could get a lock on him and blast him.”
@ProfSrlojohn, @meepinater, the Wrecker suggested to the Splitter Brothers and Gatecrasher.
“How far is he from the firing range?” Gronius asked from behind Scorchlock.
Lockdown frowns.
“That… complicates the operation,” he concedes.
Nova momentarily stops firing.
“Oh, I know I could!” he agrees. “But I much prefer the high ground!”
All eight of the feather-cannons fire, the beams striking the ground around Gatecrasher and forming a sort-of cage- one that was quickly shrinking around the Decepticon.
Nova was battling his foes off Salvation’s port side. The warp cannon could only hit targets in front of the Fleetcarrier.
“So far that I can’t get a lock on him,” Scorchlock said, looking at the panel. “By the way, how is Wildsong doing?” He asked.
GC fired a couple shells at a pair of the feathers, and tried to jump through the resulting hole. Otherwise, there was little he could do.
“Yeah, I know. How about we retreat?”
“I uh…” Gronius said. “Haven’t kept in tough with her.”
“She’s fine.” Alterion said, putting his hand on Gronius’ shoulder. “Believe me, she is. She is a big girl. She knows what she’s doing.”
“Yeah… I hope so…”
“No need for scenes!” Redstocker said, taking over the group. “Mister Scorchlock…”
######“…that was his name, right?”
Redstocker quickly asked the group, to which Alterion nodded silently.
“OK! Mister Scorchlock, you prepare to shoot that winged son of a gun out of the air as fast as possible! Mister Gronius, miss Delta, you two go there and help the other Autobots bring Nova closer to our range!”
“Straight to the point, as always!” Alterion remarked, smiling.
“You just know me, mister Alterion!”
“At least I knew you!”
Gronius and Delta nodded, before turning to their alt modes and flying out of the Salvation and towards Nova, leaving Alterion, Redstocker and Backbeak inside the cockpit, together with Scorchlock and Laslow.
As the beams close in, they intercept and destroy the shells before they could reach the cannons.’
The cannons were oriented in a circle around the former Prime; aiming at an angle towards the ground. If Gatecrasher could fly, he’d have a straight shot at Nova.
Nova could be seen harassing Gatecrasher, giving the Decepticon his full attention.
Lockdown casts a glance at the forces gathered around the control tower, and he notes how his comrades were surprisingly not attacking the crew of Salvation.
“Interesting…” he remarks.
“Well, I haven’t seen her,” Scorchlock said. “The only time I’ve seen her was with Strika…I wonder what she is planning. Whatever it is, I hope she is as tough as you say she is.”
Scorchlock smirked. “Scorchlock is just fine.” He said. “Plus I wasn’t planning on doing anything…” He said though thinking, at least not yet.
The Wrecker nods. “Yeah, as soon as I got a lock on him. He is a goner.” He said, pumping his fist.
Alterion failed to answer in time, thinking at Song’s extremely dangerous plan.
“Yeah… I hope that too…” the former detective said after some moments.
“This is how he is talking…” Alterion said bored after the two left.
“Hey! You never had a problem with me showing my respect to everybody!”
“Even to the Decepticons?”
“Well… Kind of!”
“Would you call Strika a ‘miss’?”
Redstocker opened his mouth to say something, but the words seem to have blocked into his throat.
“You do that son… You do that…” Redstocker said, patting him slowly on his left shoulder as Alterion was smirking triumphantly at his brother.
“Hey you! Bootleg of a Nemesis Prime!” Delta yelled from behind Nova.
“Yeah… Uhm… So no to the retreat?”
This posed as unique problem, as he had no space to take off. He wasn’t a VTOL.
Scorchlock turned his glare at Alterion. “Is there something I need to know?” He asked him, narrowing his optics at him.
“As far as I know, you are not related to her, so no.”
“I can’t help but feel she is doing something she shouldn’t do.” Scorchlock said. “I will find it out…and when I do…”
“When you do you’ll do what?” Alterion said, suddenly switching focus to Scorschlock.
Meanwhile, Redstocker moved his interest to Laslow.
“How’s it going, mister Laslow?”
@ProfSrlojohn
“I don’t know what I’ll do.” Scorchlock said simply. "But I’ll do something. "
“Why do you care so much about a nobody?”
The Splitter brothers continur firing at Nova.
SideStep waits patiently.