I now own a net curtain, egads
Jun. 4th, 2007 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koilungfish1/6/07 - 3/6/07 - Ill
4/6/07 - Quiet, pt 7
Hanging upside-down from the jouncing cable, Prowl reached out to take Jazz's proffered hand. The saboteur was leaning out a dangerous angle, too far for the safety of either of them.
"Careful," Prowl said, dangling awkwardly by one hand and the half-grip of his injured legs. Jazz grabbed his hand and yanked hard, swinging him away from the cliff. Prowl felt the cable lurch, swinging him away from any sort of stability. He felt his legs slipping, felt the shrapnel cutting into the line, and then lost his grip and was left hanging one-handed from the swaying cable.
"Prowl," Jazz said out of the blue, distracting him, "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for -" Prowl started to ask, as the cable jolted back with a great twang, swinging him out again, shaking his fingers loose.
Jazz let go.
Shock rushed up on him, the pale speck of Jazz vanishing into the dark speed of rock and sky and the abrupt impact of stunningly cold liquid. His splashdown shook rocks from the cliffs, pelting him on the face and chest. That hard rain of clank clink thunk shook him out of his surprise.
Prowl struggled upright. He was up to his chest in something dark and wet - from the smell of it, the cruiser's coolant. Underfoot he felt loose stones, bits of torn metal, a gravel-trap of broken hardness. He stood in the twilight of the pit and stared bemusedly at his hand, unable to work out what had happened.
He let go. Jazz let go and let me fall.
No. That cannot be true. It must have been an accident. He must've slipped, or miscalculated, or just not thought about what he was doing. Prowl's confused mind seemed to slow, the universe settling back from racing chaos into stately order. Yes, that has a high probability to it. Jazz has, once again, skipped a few steps in the chain of logic and misjudged his actions. Possibly he thought the cable was at risk of failing, or he overestimated the strength of his grip. He wouldn't deliberately drop me, would he?
Prowl automatically recalled the feeling of Jazz's hands shoving him hard in the back, pushing him face-first into the mud, covering him with muck, stopping their march and giving away their position. This needs more thought, he decided. Something's not right with Jazz.
He looked up, but could see nothing relevant, just dark cliffs and the everblack sky. Jazz had either climbed back onto the ash field or was simply lost to view amongst the rocks. Prowl couldn't see Bluestreak either, and therefore decided that the latter option was the more probable. Accordingly, he set off into the gloom in search of Smokescreen.
The gap between the ship and the cliff was narrow, too tight for him to walk with his doors out, so he folded them back, which made him feel half-deaf. The icy coolant sloshed around his waist, washing him clean of the dirt and the ashes. Prowl scooped handfuls of the liquid over his head, splashing his chest and back and shaking his doors. It felt good to be clean.
Underfoot the rocks shifted and crunched and ground on loose metal. Must be shards of the ship, Prowl reasoned. What are the chances of mines or traps? Not high. This whole defensive operation seems slipshod, almost improvised. There are no static guns, only one man with a rocket launcher - and where are those two helicopters? Of course, being Decepticons, it's possible they quarrelled over something and one's now dead, but we can't rely on that. On the other hand, it's also entirely possible that this rocket-sniper is an entirely different person from the helicopters, and we face three enemies. Or more.
He squeezed through a tight gap, back scraping against the ship, chest cutting grooves in the rock.
And then there's Jazz.
I cannot believe he's turned. He's been too loyal for too long for me to believe that. If there was to be an undercover mission, I would have been told, and besides, this is the stupidest possible place to try and launch such an operation! Of course, sometimes the stupidest place is the best place simply because it's the stupidest place, but still ... Prowl slipped and suddenly found the coolant over his head. Well, if I'd know about this, I wouldn’t have bothered splashing around for a bath.
Groping through the opaque fluid, stones moving beneath his feet, shoulders banging against the ship and the cliff, he blundered his way through the deep and onto the other side. Shaking his head and his doors as he breached the surface, Prowl pulled himself out of the coolant and onto a pile of broken stones.
An arm was sticking out of the stones.
Not Smokescreen, Prowl immediately recognised. The arm was too big, too thick, too strong. He crouched down to look at it and scanned it carefully. There was no electromagnetic response, and it was quite cold.
Why would anyone set a macabre trap at the bottom of this pit? he asked himself, and pulled on the arm.
It came free of the stones easily, bringing with it a shoulder, then a chest, an entire body. Prowl dangled a dead Decepticon from his hand, trying to examine it in the gloom, then sighed and switched on his headlights. In the sudden harsh light, the Decepticon was revealed as intact, without a mark on him. He had been a jet of some sort, nothing particularly special, and he was stone dead.
Interesting, Prowl thought, setting the corpse down and stepping over it. Decepticons do not simply drop dead for no reason. He sloshed through another pool of coolant, onto another hillock of stone. In the light of his headlamps he could see a miniature hill ahead of him, and on it a red body. Smokescreen! Prowl strode quickly through the last puddle of coolant, onto the hillock.
Here, there was less stone and more corpses. Smokescreen lay on his back, open-mouthed and dark-opticced, on top of a pile of Decepticons all raw-grey in death.
Prowl approached the pile carefully, playing his headlights over fall-twisted limbs and blank, black-opticced faces. Shattered wings and torn treads stuck out of the pile and fragments of gun-barrels and snapped fingers littered the ground. Prowl guessed there were seven, maybe eight Decepticons here.
What happened to them? All this damage looks like it happened when they fell in here, or were thrown in, already dead. He frowned. Very strange.
Prowl climbed up the pile of corpses, suppressing the tremors of revulsion whenever he felt a face beneath his fingers. He crawl-scrambled up to Smokescreen, looking the diversionary tactician over for any obvious damage; nothing. Prowl gently laid a hand on Smokescreen's shoulder and shook him a little. Smokescreen didn't respond, but from deep in his torso came a quiet rattle.
Aha.
Prowl scrabbled up to the top of the pile, feeling for purchase on the limbs and bodies with tentative feet, and leant over Smokescreen. If the damage was done by a component being jarred out by the landing, then the auto-recovery systems should have pulled it back into place, unless the component or the recovery cables are snagged, in which case... Prowl struck Smokescreen in the centre of his abdomen, hard enough to bounce his teammate on his bed of bodies. There was a loud clang, a snap, and Smokescreen's optics lit up bright blue. He looked around, wild-opticced, and then saw Prowl.
"Am I dead?" Smokescreen asked, cringing away from the dead limbs and unfeeling hands.
"No, quite the opposite," Prowl said, standing atop the pile of corpses, shining white in the bluish dim of the pit. "Welcome back to the land of moving parts."
4/6/07 - Quiet, pt 7
Hanging upside-down from the jouncing cable, Prowl reached out to take Jazz's proffered hand. The saboteur was leaning out a dangerous angle, too far for the safety of either of them.
"Careful," Prowl said, dangling awkwardly by one hand and the half-grip of his injured legs. Jazz grabbed his hand and yanked hard, swinging him away from the cliff. Prowl felt the cable lurch, swinging him away from any sort of stability. He felt his legs slipping, felt the shrapnel cutting into the line, and then lost his grip and was left hanging one-handed from the swaying cable.
"Prowl," Jazz said out of the blue, distracting him, "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for -" Prowl started to ask, as the cable jolted back with a great twang, swinging him out again, shaking his fingers loose.
Jazz let go.
Shock rushed up on him, the pale speck of Jazz vanishing into the dark speed of rock and sky and the abrupt impact of stunningly cold liquid. His splashdown shook rocks from the cliffs, pelting him on the face and chest. That hard rain of clank clink thunk shook him out of his surprise.
Prowl struggled upright. He was up to his chest in something dark and wet - from the smell of it, the cruiser's coolant. Underfoot he felt loose stones, bits of torn metal, a gravel-trap of broken hardness. He stood in the twilight of the pit and stared bemusedly at his hand, unable to work out what had happened.
He let go. Jazz let go and let me fall.
No. That cannot be true. It must have been an accident. He must've slipped, or miscalculated, or just not thought about what he was doing. Prowl's confused mind seemed to slow, the universe settling back from racing chaos into stately order. Yes, that has a high probability to it. Jazz has, once again, skipped a few steps in the chain of logic and misjudged his actions. Possibly he thought the cable was at risk of failing, or he overestimated the strength of his grip. He wouldn't deliberately drop me, would he?
Prowl automatically recalled the feeling of Jazz's hands shoving him hard in the back, pushing him face-first into the mud, covering him with muck, stopping their march and giving away their position. This needs more thought, he decided. Something's not right with Jazz.
He looked up, but could see nothing relevant, just dark cliffs and the everblack sky. Jazz had either climbed back onto the ash field or was simply lost to view amongst the rocks. Prowl couldn't see Bluestreak either, and therefore decided that the latter option was the more probable. Accordingly, he set off into the gloom in search of Smokescreen.
The gap between the ship and the cliff was narrow, too tight for him to walk with his doors out, so he folded them back, which made him feel half-deaf. The icy coolant sloshed around his waist, washing him clean of the dirt and the ashes. Prowl scooped handfuls of the liquid over his head, splashing his chest and back and shaking his doors. It felt good to be clean.
Underfoot the rocks shifted and crunched and ground on loose metal. Must be shards of the ship, Prowl reasoned. What are the chances of mines or traps? Not high. This whole defensive operation seems slipshod, almost improvised. There are no static guns, only one man with a rocket launcher - and where are those two helicopters? Of course, being Decepticons, it's possible they quarrelled over something and one's now dead, but we can't rely on that. On the other hand, it's also entirely possible that this rocket-sniper is an entirely different person from the helicopters, and we face three enemies. Or more.
He squeezed through a tight gap, back scraping against the ship, chest cutting grooves in the rock.
And then there's Jazz.
I cannot believe he's turned. He's been too loyal for too long for me to believe that. If there was to be an undercover mission, I would have been told, and besides, this is the stupidest possible place to try and launch such an operation! Of course, sometimes the stupidest place is the best place simply because it's the stupidest place, but still ... Prowl slipped and suddenly found the coolant over his head. Well, if I'd know about this, I wouldn’t have bothered splashing around for a bath.
Groping through the opaque fluid, stones moving beneath his feet, shoulders banging against the ship and the cliff, he blundered his way through the deep and onto the other side. Shaking his head and his doors as he breached the surface, Prowl pulled himself out of the coolant and onto a pile of broken stones.
An arm was sticking out of the stones.
Not Smokescreen, Prowl immediately recognised. The arm was too big, too thick, too strong. He crouched down to look at it and scanned it carefully. There was no electromagnetic response, and it was quite cold.
Why would anyone set a macabre trap at the bottom of this pit? he asked himself, and pulled on the arm.
It came free of the stones easily, bringing with it a shoulder, then a chest, an entire body. Prowl dangled a dead Decepticon from his hand, trying to examine it in the gloom, then sighed and switched on his headlights. In the sudden harsh light, the Decepticon was revealed as intact, without a mark on him. He had been a jet of some sort, nothing particularly special, and he was stone dead.
Interesting, Prowl thought, setting the corpse down and stepping over it. Decepticons do not simply drop dead for no reason. He sloshed through another pool of coolant, onto another hillock of stone. In the light of his headlamps he could see a miniature hill ahead of him, and on it a red body. Smokescreen! Prowl strode quickly through the last puddle of coolant, onto the hillock.
Here, there was less stone and more corpses. Smokescreen lay on his back, open-mouthed and dark-opticced, on top of a pile of Decepticons all raw-grey in death.
Prowl approached the pile carefully, playing his headlights over fall-twisted limbs and blank, black-opticced faces. Shattered wings and torn treads stuck out of the pile and fragments of gun-barrels and snapped fingers littered the ground. Prowl guessed there were seven, maybe eight Decepticons here.
What happened to them? All this damage looks like it happened when they fell in here, or were thrown in, already dead. He frowned. Very strange.
Prowl climbed up the pile of corpses, suppressing the tremors of revulsion whenever he felt a face beneath his fingers. He crawl-scrambled up to Smokescreen, looking the diversionary tactician over for any obvious damage; nothing. Prowl gently laid a hand on Smokescreen's shoulder and shook him a little. Smokescreen didn't respond, but from deep in his torso came a quiet rattle.
Aha.
Prowl scrabbled up to the top of the pile, feeling for purchase on the limbs and bodies with tentative feet, and leant over Smokescreen. If the damage was done by a component being jarred out by the landing, then the auto-recovery systems should have pulled it back into place, unless the component or the recovery cables are snagged, in which case... Prowl struck Smokescreen in the centre of his abdomen, hard enough to bounce his teammate on his bed of bodies. There was a loud clang, a snap, and Smokescreen's optics lit up bright blue. He looked around, wild-opticced, and then saw Prowl.
"Am I dead?" Smokescreen asked, cringing away from the dead limbs and unfeeling hands.
"No, quite the opposite," Prowl said, standing atop the pile of corpses, shining white in the bluish dim of the pit. "Welcome back to the land of moving parts."
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Date: 2007-06-11 03:31 pm (UTC)