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The crash. TB-1 had no right surviving it. Between being blasted in the chest, and the crash-landing into the blue planet, he was a mess. 'Mess' would sum it up. His chassis was cracked and damaged; there was no way he could rub out the larger dents. For one as concerned about spit-and-polish as TB-1, tis was the worst of both worlds. He'd have to spend weeks in the cr chamber before he could even begin to polish himself. Readouts were erratic. His systems were going offline. One thing was for certain; he was exposed amongst the local populace. This mission wasn't slated for a first contact. He needed to scan a suitable disguise, and do it quickly, before his presence screwed up the situation even further. Seeing what appeared to be a local refueling structure, he attempted to scan one of the vehicles present. His aim was a little off. Instead of locking onto a vehicle, he inadvertantly scanned the inside of some kind of waste disposal facility. Locking onto the largest object present in that room, his body began to reconfigure. The strain was too-much; his systems took him completely off-line in order to complete the configuration. His translator kicking in just before his brain shut down, TB-1 was forced to consider what 'Stogie's Pizza' and 'Restroom' meant. He'd be pondering that bit of information for a very long time to come.
"Stasislock averted. Time to shutdown one astrominute." UWB had averted disaster for the moment, but only just. He didn't know who this enemy was, or why he was attacking, but he did know that his friend was in-trouble. Foregoing critical repairs (and further battle), UWB used short bursts of compressed gasses from his gun to maneuver himself into the planet's gravity well. He'd make planetfall as best he could, find his friend, and deal with this interloper later. All thoughts of his mission disappeared from his processors, he began his descent.
The Leader watched UWB escape to the blue planet. Things were finally going the way he'd intended. If they continued to do so, it would be years before the two Cybertonians would find each other. The cassette, though out of his reach at the moment, would likely reappear when it was needed the most. Information didn't stay hidden forever. He slid back into the rift. There was need to free a certain ally from cold-storage, and send him on his mission. The Last Autobot musn't be kept waiting, after all. With that, the Leader winked out of existence. Of this existence, anyways.
Epilogue UWB plotted every conceviable course for his friend's crash. He wasn't at any of dozens of impact points. It was as though the crash had never happened. He was at a loss to explain it. Systems were shutting down. He didn't have the energon to maintin the search. Having already overidden his stasis-lock program, it was only a matter of time before he would shut down permanently. Memory systems were fragmenting; already he was having trouble remembering where he was, or why he was in such bad condition. Hydraulics were seizing up. He knew only that he must go on. He made it one step. Two. Three. UWB collapsed. The freshly falling snow covered his prone body. In the distance, a cow mooed at the cold winter sky. ... ... Small golden feet crunched in the freshly fallen snow. Eletrum Beast relished weather like this. It seemed to make his processors run faster; quite a thrill when you are engaging in extradimesional research. Signals such as that weren't common on this planet, which made it all the more exciting when something blipped on his screen. Not one, but two signals! How exciting. He was just in the midst of tracking two such signals when one winked out completely. Presuming the worst, he headed to the closest location - and found a prone form lying in the snow. Electrum Beast: "Here now, what's this! Well old fellow, you're certainly not from around here. What say we get you stabilized and back to base?" Calling to his friends back at MooBase 1, he arranged for Campaign Car to meet him for transport, with Ticker and Scoot on standby. This fellow would need to be in medbay fast if he was to survive. Though he wanted to search further, this 'bot needed help. He would have to look later for the source of the other signal... which was strangely out of phase in the first place. Not wanting to attract attention, Electrum Beast deployed a screen from his subspace compartment. Placing it over UWB, its advanced holographics hid his prone form and projected what it sensed was appropriate for their location... A cow. Electrum Beast: "There, old fellow, now you look just like that little one down the field. Never fear; we'll get you fixed right up. You're a strong one, alright. Good old fashioned GeeWun technology, I'll bet. Haven't seen your kind in a long time. Hope we can keep you up as-is. Don't mind my talking, old man; you'll be able to answer me once we get you online again. Say, did I ever tell you about the time I first discovered EC2? It's electrum-cheddar, my friend, and I made a rather loud splash in the research community when I discovered it. Got me a grant to study it, and everything...."
The Beginning. |
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