“Yes, it does,” Corona affirms. “I can tell you more while we go see your medic.”
Scrapshot just so happened to find himself in the control room, where Zepar still was.
Forcep holds up his hand.
“Don’t pay me,” he says, shaking his head.
Epsilon nods in agreement and gets ready to continue following the trail.
GC did the same.
She continued searching desperately for a medbay in the village.
She turned to the control room, distracted by the light.
“What’s that?”
Corona transforms and begins to drive down the trail, while Sidewinder assumes his jet mode and joins Thrift in the air.
There was a hospital in the village, of course. It appeared to have once been a medical transport ship, fittingly enough. It’s white hull, marked with dirt, bore a red cross- one of the universal symbols of medicine in this day and age.
GC switches to A-10 mode and follows.
She entered inside, looking for something that would help Blackbeak.
The jungle continued for many miles. Poking through the biomechanical canopy and the shafts of light from the fissures were massive machines of ancient cybertronian origin. Their purpose could not be determined- time and the elements had ravaged them greatly- but some rose like spires into the sky, while others sloped around hillsides and rivers.
It just so happened that Grommet was in the hospital’s lobby. Likely, he was here as part of his search, but that then begged the question of why it warranted his being here.
Motherboard turns at the waist, and the rest of the bridge crew follows their gaze.
“What’s what?” Flyby asks. “Are we under attack again?”
Apart from the statues of the Thirteen, there were murals hewn from the metal walls depicting Primus battling Unicron, the creation of Cybertron, and jagged rocky cliffs jutting into a calm sea.
GC flew onward, taking in the dazzling beauty all around him.
He loved this. Being out here, in the natural world, it made him feel alive, like there was some purpose to this quest after all, that there was something worthwhile to save in this world after all.
Spectrum searched for anything that might make something move, or make something happen.
“I need help!”
“That light.”
Thrift and Sidewinder flew beside Gatecrasher.
“Heard the convo down there,” Thrift says. “Care to elaborate on how exactly this place wound up looking like Zero Time?”
“Uh… sure,” Sidewinder complies, thrown off by the junkion’s unfamiliar reference. “The Knights cut the Omega Lock into pieces for transport. That released an energy surge that effectively cyberformed the whole planet.”
“Whoa,” Thrift reacts. “How did that not make it into the history books?”
“You can thank ancient conspiracies and, you know, the interstellar civil war going on at the time, for that, I reckon,” Sidewinder infers. “There’s so much we lost during that time, and we found this place pretty much by accident.”
There was nothing of the kind to be found. Any hidden mechanisms were also likely destroyed by whatever force had left this facility in ruins.
The neutrals and Facelift were gathering by a set of stairs that led below.
Grommet turns around, looking through the crowd before laying eyes on Delta.
“You again…” he sighs. “What is it now?”
“What light?” Breakswitch asks. The flash had since faded.
“Sounds like the usual story”
She showed Blackbeak.
“Never mind. Did anybody see Zepar in the last few days?”
Sidewinder chuckles.
“It sure does,” he agrees. “Our history’s pretty dramatic, huh? And Corona says it’s only gonna get moreso.”
Grommet’s telescoping eye narrows as he studies Blackbeak’s injuries. Then, with a sigh, he takes the bird from Delta’s grasp.
Walking away, the scientists contacts Shockwave.
“Shockwave, I’m going to be tied up for a moment,” he could be heard saying. “Let me know if you find it.”
“Transmit your location, so that I may enact a rescue operation,” comes Shockwave’s reply.
“What?” Grommet sputters. “I-… it’s a figure of speech, Shockwave; I’m not being held hostage.”
“I am aware,” says Shockwave. “I was illustrating the folly of using idioms and hyperbole to communicate vital information.”
Grumbling, Grommet terminates the transmission.
“I have not seen crewman Zepar since this morning,” Motherboard says.
“Hey, I just make phone calls,” Broadband says with a shrug. “I don’t keep track of everybody.”
“Eh, can’t help you,” Flyby and Breakswitch simultaneously respond.
Spectrum skipped after the neutrals and Facelift.
“Is this your new base of operations?”
“And where was he when you last saw him?” she asked Motherboard.
Zepar remained in the spaceport’s control room, pondering on what he had seen.
Epsilon did his best to follow the tracks.
“You sure? You did your job, you deserve somethin’.”
The three neutrals and Facelift climb down the stairs.
“Okay,” Facelift says. “So thanks for the exposition and all, but I still have a pressing question: why exactly do you need me here?”
“We haven’t just been sitting on our tailpipes waiting for Salvation these past 7,000 years,” the four-armed neutral says. “We’ve been building something… or should I say, some-one…”
Cruising beside the land-based members of the party, Corona explains the full significance of Planet Omega and its features.
“This world wasn’t always like this. The records we’ve managed to salvage and translate suggest that it was a fairly unremarkable planet when the Knights first discovered it- which made it the perfect place to build the Omega Lock in secret.”
Grommet had already walked away into the crowd, to mend Blackbeak’s injuries.
Motherboard’s screen plays a recording of the morning’s events, during which Zepar and the rest had received their new weapons from Corona and her followers.
“I am already well-compensated for my efforts, thank you,” Forcep insists. “Save the money to get that new grenade launcher of yours installed, or something.”