The only Decepticons Wildsong had managed to save were Headlong and his friend. The rest had been killed by the Driller, which seemed intent on making Wildsong it’s next meal.
The beast shoots up out of the water, howling as one of its tendrils arcs toward the air, a claw on its end snapping as it aims to grab Wildsong.
Several bots jump out of the way to avoid being run over.
King-Quan looked through to see if there was any information for the next planet which was their destination.
Wildsong wildly propels herself out of the water in robot mode, as she tries to dodge the driller’s tentacles.
The information the console was over a hundred million years out of date, but it stated that the planet’s landmasses were mostly covered in dense forests. There was no intelligent life to speak of, but many species of both flora and fauna. The planet was particularly rich in energon in its eastern hemisphere, but the Knights of Cybertron had deemed the planet unsuitable for colonization as a whole.
The claw scrapes against her left wing, before the Driller dives back down into the depths.
SideStep folds his arms and leans against the bar table, exhaling as he relaxed.
“Man it feels good to have some time without worryin’ about anything.”
Flyby takes a gulp from his glass.
“That it does,” he agrees. “You know, outside the obvious.”
SideStep swallows down a sip from his drink.
He looks about the bar, silent for a moment.
“So how’d you get here? Y’know… on the Salvation?”
Flyby takes another swig from his glass, draining it of its contents, before setting it upon the bar with a clank.
“Now that,” the pilot says, holding up a finger. “That is a story.”
“So, before the war, I was a cargo pilot, right? Wanted to fly battleships- ah, specifically, those Vanguard-class interceptors they were just starting to roll out back then. The ones with the overshock sonic- I’m getting sidetracked, sorry. Anyway, I graduated from the academy at the top of my class… and I got stuck running scrap metal to Junkion and back. Go figure, eh?”
“Wow.” Sidestep chuckles.
“The military would have to be a fool not to let someone of that talent in.” He mused.
“Hey, I was the best d*mn scrap hauler you’ve ever seen; the junkions loved me,” Flyby says, proud of the job he had seemed to disparage just previously. Then, he sighs.
“But, I did yearn for more in life, I admit. When the Decepticons started looking for pilots, Breakswitch put in a good word for me.”
Sidestep nods.
“That’s good, right?”
Flyby shakes his hand- a “so-so” gesture.
“Ehhh, depends,” he says. “Starscream didn’t so much invite me to join the Decepticon navy as much as he shot down my freighter and yanked me out of the wreckage.”
“It was a heck of a first impression, I’ll give him that.”
Sidestep chuckled.
“He’s a bit of a nutjob sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Flyby laughs. “Are we talking about the same Starscream?”
“Oh, great, now there’s more than one?” Joked Sidestep, chuckling.
“Fortunately not,” Flyby says.
“Try as he might…”
Sidestep nods.
“If cloning were ever to be a thing, you can bet your T-cog that Starscream would be all over it.”
“Oh, he tried,” Flyby says.
“Back when Megatron was having Shockwave experiment with the technology, Starscream tried making a few clones of himself. That was before we found out about the spark problem. Starscream didn’t get an armada, as much as he got a pack of feral beasts with jet modes and null rays. It didn’t turn out well.”
“Oh yikes. That’s nightmare fuel.” Sidestep replied, taking another gulp of his drink.
This damages the engine, as the only other one starts propelling her wildly through the water. She turns it off, as she resumes swimming towards the other two, on the small island.
“So… Uhm… Bad news…” she said as she got back on the shore.