“You pilot this whole thing all by yourself?”
The remaining patients were all in stable condition- there was little more that could be done for them until Salvation was complete.
Fortunately, that moment looked soon to be at hand. The cocoon that had formed around the Fleetcarrier glows as bridges extend from her docking cradle, passing through round ports opening in the cocoon’s surface to connect to her many airlocks and hangars. Through these portholes, keen-eyed bots could watch as the pieces of their immense ship coalesce and come back together to form windows, cannons, antennae, and engines. In moments, it seemed, Salvation would be ready to resume her voyage.
“It’s about time,” Topside comments. “We’ve been on this planet less than a week, but man, if it hasn’t felt like months…”
“Motherboard,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■ summons his first officer, “begin preparations for-”
“Affirmative, captain ■■■■■■■■■■■■,” Motherboard interrupts, suddenly making her presence behind the two captains known. Both Autobot and Decepticon are caught off guard and jump.
“Pre-boarding procedures are now underway.”
Nearby, Flyby and Brakeswitch recline on a pillar of rock.
“Hey, Flyby?” says the navigator.
“Yeah?” the pilot responds.
“Why haven’t we been opening with the giant death ray of unparalleled destruction for the past month?”
“You know, that’s a good question.”
“If Bludgeon doesn’t kill you before this voyage ends, I just might…”
“Yes,” Lockdown confirms as he climbs into the pilot’s seat, the controls coming alight as he places his hands on them. The Death’s Head’s engines rumble as the bounty hunter begins to take the ship upward.
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“So…” Song said, trying to make conversation to distract herself from realising that she is in one of the worst places to be for an Autobot. “For how long have you been a bounty hunter?”
Spectrum looked at Forcep.
“A-a-a-all done!”
“Long enough,” Lockdown replies coldly.
“Well done,” Forcep compliments her.
@MichaelBT-7474 @meepinater @Toa_Vladin @ProfSrlojohn @Flux @ToaNoah_Wafflemeister @BlackBeltGamer98
With Nova Prime defeated, and Bludgeon’s legions of traitors and mercenaries in retreat, the crew of Salvation gather around the cliffs flanking the gargantuan ship, together with the surviving pilgrims that the prophet Corona had led to this planet thousands of years ago. With their home destroyed and their leader dead, they had all decided to join the Fleetcarrier’s crew and their mission.
Thousands of glowing eyes look up at the black metal shell in which Salvation hid, its surface- inscribed with glowing blue cyberglyphs and ancient markings- shining in the golden glow of the morning sun. The entire island seemed to have fallen silent, save for the constant, dull murmur of the immense crowd below the ship. In the silence, a high-pitched, reverberating ringing sound echoes from Salvation’s docking cradle as the surface of her cocoon ripples, and the lights of the conduits on the spaceport’s ancient machines flash brightly. The ebony metal begins to split apart, revealing patches of shiny red metal beneath it. The crew watches with awe and anticipation.
In the spaceport’s control tower, the Omega Key chirps as its console goes dark, the holo-screens around it dissolving as the artifact pops out of the terminal’s port and gently lowers itself to the ground.
All at once, the metal cocoon vanishes, and in its place was Salvation, fully restored and re-assembled. Sunlight gleams off twenty miles of polished, sand-colored hull plating, and thousands of windows and exterior lights flicker to life with a pleasant orange aura. Six giant fixtures beneath the bridge tower come alight, illuminating with their pale glow the Fleetcarrier’s name, written in white neocybex letters inside a round design decorated with a ring of cyberglyphs. Salvation’s six engines hum to life, pools of cool blue plasma filling the massive drums extending from her stern, and the ship rumbles as her antigravity drives re-activate, and she hovers between the moorings that had been holding her above the ground.
She looked like new- better than the day our heroes had first embarked on their voyage with her back on Cybertron over a month ago. Some might even go as far as to say she looked beautiful. Greasemonkey certainly seemed to think so- the old Autobot gazed up at Salvation with a positively starstruck expression, as the crowd around him ooh’s and ah’s at the sight before them.
“What? What’s happening?” Thrift asks, looking around. “What’s everyone gawking at?”
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Spectrum beams happily.
Forcep looks up as Salvation’s rebuilt form is revealed. A trace of a smile tugs at his mouth, but the doctor is quick to suppress it.
“Finally,” he says. “I can give these men some proper treatment… and re-attach that mouthy wrecker’s arm when he inevitably comes to bother me again…”
“And… Why did you started it in the first place?”
Redstocker, Delta and Gronius enter the Salvation, admiring her interiour as if it was the first day they joined it.
Alterion and Blackbeak were already inside.
Blight had found his way inside the carrier and now scanned around, seeking really anyone he recognized. Pixel caught he gaze and waved happily. Blight ignored him.
If he looked out the airlock, he might see Juliana picking her way among the rubble, looking for something.
The three weren’t alone; by the thousands, bots of every faction were swarming aboard Salvation, crowding her spotless corridors as they pour through the airlocks.
Many were loitering about, admiring the ship’s rebuilt appearance, while others ran to their hab-suites to make sure that the Omega Key hadn’t misplaced any of their belongings.
“To travel the galaxy, obviously,” Lockdown flatly quips. “To see the sights.”
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GC was about to walk inside, when he realized he forgot someone! Deus! He quickly ran out and took to tbe skies, trying to find the fellow.
Laslow, on the otherhand, made a beeline to the medical wing, his detached wheel under his arm.
“This place is beautiful!” Delta said, her optics wide opened as she admired the rebuilt place.
“It is, it definitely is.” Gronius admitted. “Better than I was remembering it.”
Just then, Alterion came running to them. Blackbeak, who has been following him from the air, handed on Delta’s shoulder, who greeted him laughing.
“We did it!” Alterion said, grinning. “We killed a Prime.”
“That are four words that I never thought I would be happy to hear in the same sentence!” Gronius said, smiling.
“Hey, by the way, where is captain Redstocker?”
“Oh, he told us that he is leaving, and that he doesn’t want to waste any minute.”
Alterion’s grin slowly fades. “What is that son of a gun having in mind?”
“Speaking of missing people, does anybody saw Wildsong?” Gronius asked.
Alterion’s silence made the euphoria caused by Nova’s death to fully die away.
“Yes, but you don’t need to hunt bounties to do that. You can just… get a ship and visit the nearest star system.”
Deus could be found, in stasis lock, half-buried under the rubble of a destroyed warehouse.
Forcep had been quick to get Salvation’s medical facilities up and running again. He, his staff, and their many drone assistants were carrying wounded bots through the halls on hovering stretchers, ushering the more grievously-wounded among them into CR chambers.
“Remember to scan for Dark Energon poisoning!” Forcep could be heard calling above the controlled chaos. “And- gah! Do these blasted drones have a mute button to shut them up?!”
Lockdown shrugs. The Death’s Head rockets into the sky, and if Wildsong looked out the windows on the starboard side, she might be able to see the rebuilt Salvation fading from view as Lockdown took his ship above the clouds.
"Slag! Deus!’ he yells, then begins quickly pulling rubble off of Deus as fast as he could.
Laslow tries to force his way through to Forcep.
“Which also begs the question…” Song said, moving her glance from the Salvation. “Why did you join Bludgeon?”
Redstockers enter his bedroom.
OOC: @Chromeharpoon I think now it would be the moment for him to discover his price from Corona.
Deus offers no resistance, being unconscious.
The cybertronian homunculus’ armor was battered and coated in ash. Fortunately, none of his wounds seemed fatal.
Forcep closes the door to a CR chamber, before turning and looking down at Laslow. He immediately takes notice of the wheel the Autobot was holding.
“Need me to get that fixed, I’ll take it,” he infers.
Pale lights in Restocker’s hab-suite come to life, revealing a worn orange datacard sitting on a desk on the far side of the room.
The Autobot might also notice a new addition to the room: built into the wall beside an inert console was a tiny porthole covered by glass, in which floated a dim, nebulous orb of light-blue energy. The orb gently pulsed and emitted a quiet hum.
“Simple,” Lockdown answers. "Bludgeon hired me. His offer was… appealing, so I took the job.
GC picks up deus, and gently carries him back to the Salvation.
“I can wait, you seem to have bigger issues. Anyway I can help?” He asked.
Surprised and confused, Redstocker didn’t knew what to take first.
He decided to inspect the datacard before the orb.
“Money? Just that? Only that?”
The datacard had a short riddle encoded in its datatracks:
“To walk the path, find the Key to its end.”
Corona had originally meant for this riddle to encourage Restocker to use the Omega Key to restore his legs, though due to circumstances she hadn’t foreseen, the Autobot was already up and walking again, making this message sadly irrelevant.
Seeing Gatecrasher carrying the limp body of Deus, many a considerate crew member clears a path for the Decepticon.
“You can help by laying down over there and letting me patch you up,” Forcep calmly insists, pointing to a table on his right.
“Not exactly,” Lockdown replies.
The Death’s Head approaches the Heretic fleet, which had regrouped far out of range of the spaceport island’s defensive weapons. Many of the warships bore long black scars on their hulls, and other damages that small maintenance vessels were hovering above.
Lockdown flies his ship toward the Vigilant, a command ship hanging in the air above the Armageddon.
He guides the Death’s Head into a cavernous hangar situated behind the bow, and lands the ship in a berth that deploys various catwalks and mechanical arms around the vessel.