koilungfish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
koilungfish) wrote2008-02-07 04:10 pm
koilungfish) wrote2008-02-07 04:10 pm
Entry tags:
080207 - Quiet part 9
24/1/08 - 26/1/8 - Ill
27/1/08 - Fail
28/1/08 - Fail
29/1/08 - 895 words on Quiet
30/1/08 - 1/2/8 - Fail
2/2/08 - Ill
3/2/08 - Ill
4/2/08 - 1483 words on Blood & Diesel
5/2/08 - 1688 words on Omicron Rising
6/2/08 - 789 words on Taste of Empires
Quiet, pt 9
The silence stretched out for a breem, then two and into a third. Prowl's internal chronometer counted down the seconds until the end of the third breem and then, unexpectedly, into a fourth.
The four of them were still crouched on the edge of the cliff, Smokescreen glancing back down into the pit every minute or two, Jazz with his head down. Prowl noted that his team were rattled and started to work out a search plan for Hound.
The silence was getting too long.
Click! on the radio, Click click! Click! Mirage giving the all clear.
Prowl lead his remaining teammates along the edge of the cliff, still keeping a cautious optic out for those helicopters, looking more at the trees for Hound than the sky for Decepticons.
He must have heard that signal unless his radio was damaged, and if his radio is damaged then he's been hit, Prowl thought. When they were directly beneath the airlock door, he signed Jazz to send up his grappling line.
Jazz did, giving his arm a fancy swing and sending the grapple twirling up, flashing in the sunlight. The grapple caught the rim of the airlock door neatly and held firm.
Jazz leant back and braced himself. "Going up!"
Prowl had a moment of doubt. I need to get up to that airlock to assess the situation - and gain a vantage point to look for Hound - but ... no. No doubts. Jazz made a mistake. Nothing more. "I'll go first. Bluestreak, on my signal, you follow. Smokescreen, keep an optic out for Hound."
"Where is he?" Bluestreak wondered aloud.
The only response Prowl allowed himself was a tightening of the corners of his mouth. Using Jazz's knee and shoulders as steps, he climbed up onto the cable, swung a leg around to get a grip with his knees and crashed flat on his back on the ground.
Stunned, Prowl lay still for a second, blinking the ashes and pollen from his optics. As his vision cleared he saw the cable swinging slowly away, wriggling gently, until it hung still and vertical over the pit.
"What happened?" Prowl said, getting up and looking around.
"Line broke," Jazz said. He held up his right arm, the last six feet or so of the line hanging limply from his wrist. It was cut most of the way through - sliced through the tough plastic-ceramic coating, through the cabling, through the strong elastoid core - and then the rest had snapped.
Prowl looked down at his legs and groaned inwardly as he realized the shrapnel still peppering his shins had done the damage. It must have. Because the only other option is that Jazz cut it and that is ridiculous. Ridiculous. He allowed himself a sigh. "Right. Jazz, how much spare line do you have?"
"Another half-mile or so," Jazz said. "But I ain't got another hook." He looked abashed. "Ain't never needed more than one."
Prowl looked around the clearing again, then up at the sky and finally back at the ship. This situation is becoming dangerous. We need to regroup quickly. "Jazz, secure us a route up the side of the ship. Bluestreak, Smokescreen, we're going to find Hound." He looked back at the bowl of fire where they'd left the scout. "I think he's injured."
They found Hound under a pile of smouldering tree-trunks a few paces from where they'd left him. He was unconscious and covered in ash. Prowl fretted, shoving trees aside, feeling time ticking away second by precious second.
We're not safe, his battle computer told him, not safe, not safe. It went on and on like a metronome. There are more Decepticons here, there must be more, there's too few bodies in the pit. Where are those helicopters? Where did they go? Who's in command? They aren't fighting each other so there must be someone in command. Where is he?
He and Bluestreak swiped the cinereous branches from Hound and lifted him, looking for damage.
"See anything?" Smokescreen asked, standing well back and keeping nervous watch.
"Nothing," Prowl said, running his fingers over Hound, under his chest and around the back of his head. "No external damage beyond some singeing and a couple of dents." He looked around. There was nothing, just trees and rocks and ash and pollen.
The pollen ... ?
"We don't have time to field-strip him," he decided. "We'll move him deeper into the trees and hide him. Smokescreen, collect as much of that pollen as you can. Hopefully it'll hide his magnetic response signal." Smokescreen nodded. Prowl suspected he'd been about to suggest that himself. "Come on, Bluestreak, let’s get Hound somewhere under cover."
The gunner was slow to respond. Prowl frowned. He needs to rest before he gets too rattled ... but not here, not now.
They left Hound in the shelter of a thick stand of trees, half-buried in mud and liberally smeared with pollen and ashes. Prowl sought out and piled up any loose boulders he could find that gave magnetic responses. He hoped the scout would be safe.
Jazz dangled on the end of the grappling line, swinging gently from side to side and grinning like a loon. Prowl didn't want to know how he'd made the jump to catch the line but there he was, happy as an idiot.
No, Prowl thought, not happy. The saboteur's smile looked stretched out, as if he'd forced it onto his face. Every time he looked at Prowl his movements slowed down, his smile faltered just a little bit. He's shaken. Nowhere near as badly as Bluestreak, but I need to get these two somewhere safe, somewhere they can calm down. He looked up. Safe. In there. Hmm.
"Everyone aboard," Jazz said, kicking his legs back and then forwards. He swung away from them and then towards, back and forth like a pendulum. In a few swings the cable was swinging close enough to be reached. "Come on, catch!" It took a few leaps and grabs and scraping in the dust but they all caught on and started to climb. At the rear, half-shredded cable tangling around his shins, Prowl looked down and back.
Below him the burnt ground was pale and empty, only the ashes moving in the low breezes. The sky was empty and silent. Hound was invisible amongst the trees, his position marked only by a dull smear of magnetic activity, nothing more than would be expected from a big pile of slightly magnetic stones.
Perhaps a little too invisible, Prowl thought, frowning again. Am I wrong? Are they all dead? He thought of Hound, unconscious without any clear cause. He couldn't have been contaminated by the dead Decepticons, so it's not a physically transmitted problem ... unless the sniper deliberately used some form of contaminated ammunition. He certainly didn't put it past a Decepticon.
He wriggled his way up the cable, trying not to twitch with impatience at the slowness of their climb. One by one his teammates were helped over the edge of the airlock by Mirage and into the Decepticon warship. They huddled in the airlock, trying not to be too visible or noisy. With the ship nose-down, they were standing on what would have been the forward wall of the airlock. Prowl was quietly glad the Decepticons built their ships on such a large scale, comfortably large enough to hold five Autobots and a corpse with room to spare. Jazz knelt, respooling his cable.
That inner door shouldn't be open, Prowl realised as he climbed into the airlock. It should be physically impossible for both doors to be open at once.
The sniper lay dead on the 'floor', a neat hole through the back of his head. His face was spattered against the floor. Chips of optic crystal sparkled and crunched underfoot. The Decepticon hadn't seen or even heard Mirage until the sniper was standing on top of him. Prowl crouched to quickly examine the dead body. Mirage looked on dispassionately, neatly dividing his time between look out of the open door, then down at Prowl and the corpse, then through the inside door into the dark, silent corridors. Smokescreen was looking into the ship as well, giving Prowl only quick glances when he made a noise. Jazz crouched at the outer door, spooling up his cable, his expression troubled. Bluestreak stared, arms slack, mouth open slightly as he watched Prowl handle the corpse with cool detachment.
Prowl lifted the Decepticon's head and turned it towards him. The face was gone, now nothing but a messy exit wound. Mirage must have fired at very close range. Ignoring his own distaste, Prowl slipped two fingers into the exit wound and felt for the Decepticon's backstrut. Near that he found the central information cables. He rolled the exposed ends between his fingers; they were entirely without current.
"He's dead," Prowl whispered, standing up.
Mirage nodded, as if to say of course.
"Now what?" Smokescreen asked, keeping a watchful look onto the corridor.
Prowl shook his hands, flicking away drops of the corpse's lubricant. We need to find a safe place so Jazz and Bluestreak can compose themselves. Then we need to find the bridge, to find out what happened, and finally secure the stealth components. But that will have to wait. He thought for a moment, adding the details of the corridor to his mental plan of the ship. This airlock is halfway down the rear half of the ship, so the section interchange will be about fifteen thousand feet below us. Jazz's spare cable will reach that easily. From there it will be another fifteen thousand feet to the bridge. He looked down at his tattered shins and thought carefully. "We need to climb down to the section interchange and find a way into the forward section of the ship. If I attempt to climb with my legs in this condition, the cable will be destroyed. We do not have time to effect repairs. Therefore, Jazz, you are going to lead the remainder of the team down to the section interchange. You will locate and secure the interchange blast-door control chamber and you will use that to repower the blast-doors and access the forward sections."
"But what 'bout you?" Jazz asked.
"I'll stay here and ensure that our escape route remains secure," Prowl said firmly. "From here I can maintain a careful watch on the outside as well. I suspect our enemies are all outside the ship now. Jazz, a word." He took the saboteur's arm and leaned close to converse by touch. [Jazz, when you get to the blast chamber controls, I want you to stop and rest. Bluestreak is shaken and Mirage probably needs a chance to recharge.]
[Gotcha,] Jazz replied with a nod.
[Do you want to leave the grappling cable here or take it into the front section?]
Jazz's face went carefully blank. [Uh, I'll decide when we're down there.]
Prowl patted his shoulder gently. [Don't push yourself too hard. You've done a lot of work and probably need to recharge as much as Mirage does.] He didn’t mention what was becoming obvious to him - that Jazz needed rest to uncloud his mind. He didn't mention that he was becoming worried by Smokescreen either; the tactician was clearly nervous, disturbed by his fall into the corpse-pit, but Prowl calculated he was mentally strong enough to continue.
[Yeah, right,] Jazz said without flippancy. "'kay troops, we're moving out." He straightened his arm out and ejected the whole grappling mechanism. Quickly and neatly he pried out a wall-panel near the airlock door and hooked the grappling hook under the doorframe. Prowl approved; it looked secure as it could be without welding. "Mirage, you want to do the honours?"
Mirage shrugged, glanced outside the ship for a second, then vanished. Prowl saw the cable wriggle as the sniper started to climb down. Jazz and Smokescreen stood on either side of the airlock door, peering into the gloom.
After a few moments, the cable twanged as Mirage flicked it with a finger. Jazz beckoned the other two on then hopped over the doorframe, almost sliding down the cable.
As Bluestreak and then Smokescreen followed, Prowl sat down to take a closer look at the corpse.
This was no helicopter, that had been obvious on the very first glance. The dead Decepticon was a car of some sort, low and sleek and powerful. A pursuit vehicle, Prowl thought, noting the tyre-cutter mini-missiles mounted on the leading edge of the Decepticon's hood.
The sniper was of a similar size and transformation scheme to Mirage - nothing strange there - and his wheels were small with thick, dense tyres. An enforcer? Prowl wondered. Someone of that sort meant the ship had been crewed by Decepticons loyal to the commander of one of the Decepticons' colonies, perhaps even a crew built in the colonies, Decepticons who had never seen Cybertron or even Autobots before. Built to go fast on something flat. Definitely not from a fringe colony. One of the bigger colonies? Some Decepticon fortress-world? Prowl wracked his databanks for such a world but there were none in the immediate area. So how far away did this crew come from? Was there just this one lone colonial? There were other, more complex possibilities - the endless interweavings of Decepticon politics, backstabbing and sabotage - but those would have to wait for more data.
Prowl examined the body for identifying marks - subgroup decals, the logo of a local commander or hero, even autograffiti but nothing. The sniper's body was a glossy black blankness. Prowl mentally transformed him to get an idea of his altmode but it told him nothing, just a minor variant on one of the few mass-produced Decepticon car forms.
Prowl's fingers touched rough metal. He lifted the Decepticon's left arm away from his body and saw, close to the shoulder joint where it would be almost invisible to the casual observer, a set of deep scratches.
Prowl's battle computer flashed warnings. He drew his fingers away and looked more closely. The cuts - they were cuts, deep and neat and parallel - were angled down the body, as if he'd cut himself with a blade in his right hand. They were clean and deliberate and - Prowl looked closely - lined with rust.
An autocorroder, he realised. Both wounds and rust were self-inflicted. How did that connect with this Decepticon's continued survival when all his comrades had apparently vanished or died? These cuts can't be that recent, even if he rubbed rust spores in them. He wiped his hands on the Decepticon's back, hoping any spores would cling to the body and not to him.
Prowl sat down opposite the corpse, his feet drawn up so that he could pick at the shrapnel with his free hand. The other held his rifle in a loose grip, ready to aim at any threat on either the inside or the outside of the ship.
A ship from the colonies, with a colonial crew and a new stealth generator, and it crashes here in a strange fashion. Most of the crew are dead. The remainder are missing, possibly even fled. The ship is a mess.
He settled down to wait.
What happened here?
27/1/08 - Fail
28/1/08 - Fail
29/1/08 - 895 words on Quiet
30/1/08 - 1/2/8 - Fail
2/2/08 - Ill
3/2/08 - Ill
4/2/08 - 1483 words on Blood & Diesel
5/2/08 - 1688 words on Omicron Rising
6/2/08 - 789 words on Taste of Empires
Quiet, pt 9
The silence stretched out for a breem, then two and into a third. Prowl's internal chronometer counted down the seconds until the end of the third breem and then, unexpectedly, into a fourth.
The four of them were still crouched on the edge of the cliff, Smokescreen glancing back down into the pit every minute or two, Jazz with his head down. Prowl noted that his team were rattled and started to work out a search plan for Hound.
The silence was getting too long.
Click! on the radio, Click click! Click! Mirage giving the all clear.
Prowl lead his remaining teammates along the edge of the cliff, still keeping a cautious optic out for those helicopters, looking more at the trees for Hound than the sky for Decepticons.
He must have heard that signal unless his radio was damaged, and if his radio is damaged then he's been hit, Prowl thought. When they were directly beneath the airlock door, he signed Jazz to send up his grappling line.
Jazz did, giving his arm a fancy swing and sending the grapple twirling up, flashing in the sunlight. The grapple caught the rim of the airlock door neatly and held firm.
Jazz leant back and braced himself. "Going up!"
Prowl had a moment of doubt. I need to get up to that airlock to assess the situation - and gain a vantage point to look for Hound - but ... no. No doubts. Jazz made a mistake. Nothing more. "I'll go first. Bluestreak, on my signal, you follow. Smokescreen, keep an optic out for Hound."
"Where is he?" Bluestreak wondered aloud.
The only response Prowl allowed himself was a tightening of the corners of his mouth. Using Jazz's knee and shoulders as steps, he climbed up onto the cable, swung a leg around to get a grip with his knees and crashed flat on his back on the ground.
Stunned, Prowl lay still for a second, blinking the ashes and pollen from his optics. As his vision cleared he saw the cable swinging slowly away, wriggling gently, until it hung still and vertical over the pit.
"What happened?" Prowl said, getting up and looking around.
"Line broke," Jazz said. He held up his right arm, the last six feet or so of the line hanging limply from his wrist. It was cut most of the way through - sliced through the tough plastic-ceramic coating, through the cabling, through the strong elastoid core - and then the rest had snapped.
Prowl looked down at his legs and groaned inwardly as he realized the shrapnel still peppering his shins had done the damage. It must have. Because the only other option is that Jazz cut it and that is ridiculous. Ridiculous. He allowed himself a sigh. "Right. Jazz, how much spare line do you have?"
"Another half-mile or so," Jazz said. "But I ain't got another hook." He looked abashed. "Ain't never needed more than one."
Prowl looked around the clearing again, then up at the sky and finally back at the ship. This situation is becoming dangerous. We need to regroup quickly. "Jazz, secure us a route up the side of the ship. Bluestreak, Smokescreen, we're going to find Hound." He looked back at the bowl of fire where they'd left the scout. "I think he's injured."
They found Hound under a pile of smouldering tree-trunks a few paces from where they'd left him. He was unconscious and covered in ash. Prowl fretted, shoving trees aside, feeling time ticking away second by precious second.
We're not safe, his battle computer told him, not safe, not safe. It went on and on like a metronome. There are more Decepticons here, there must be more, there's too few bodies in the pit. Where are those helicopters? Where did they go? Who's in command? They aren't fighting each other so there must be someone in command. Where is he?
He and Bluestreak swiped the cinereous branches from Hound and lifted him, looking for damage.
"See anything?" Smokescreen asked, standing well back and keeping nervous watch.
"Nothing," Prowl said, running his fingers over Hound, under his chest and around the back of his head. "No external damage beyond some singeing and a couple of dents." He looked around. There was nothing, just trees and rocks and ash and pollen.
The pollen ... ?
"We don't have time to field-strip him," he decided. "We'll move him deeper into the trees and hide him. Smokescreen, collect as much of that pollen as you can. Hopefully it'll hide his magnetic response signal." Smokescreen nodded. Prowl suspected he'd been about to suggest that himself. "Come on, Bluestreak, let’s get Hound somewhere under cover."
The gunner was slow to respond. Prowl frowned. He needs to rest before he gets too rattled ... but not here, not now.
They left Hound in the shelter of a thick stand of trees, half-buried in mud and liberally smeared with pollen and ashes. Prowl sought out and piled up any loose boulders he could find that gave magnetic responses. He hoped the scout would be safe.
Jazz dangled on the end of the grappling line, swinging gently from side to side and grinning like a loon. Prowl didn't want to know how he'd made the jump to catch the line but there he was, happy as an idiot.
No, Prowl thought, not happy. The saboteur's smile looked stretched out, as if he'd forced it onto his face. Every time he looked at Prowl his movements slowed down, his smile faltered just a little bit. He's shaken. Nowhere near as badly as Bluestreak, but I need to get these two somewhere safe, somewhere they can calm down. He looked up. Safe. In there. Hmm.
"Everyone aboard," Jazz said, kicking his legs back and then forwards. He swung away from them and then towards, back and forth like a pendulum. In a few swings the cable was swinging close enough to be reached. "Come on, catch!" It took a few leaps and grabs and scraping in the dust but they all caught on and started to climb. At the rear, half-shredded cable tangling around his shins, Prowl looked down and back.
Below him the burnt ground was pale and empty, only the ashes moving in the low breezes. The sky was empty and silent. Hound was invisible amongst the trees, his position marked only by a dull smear of magnetic activity, nothing more than would be expected from a big pile of slightly magnetic stones.
Perhaps a little too invisible, Prowl thought, frowning again. Am I wrong? Are they all dead? He thought of Hound, unconscious without any clear cause. He couldn't have been contaminated by the dead Decepticons, so it's not a physically transmitted problem ... unless the sniper deliberately used some form of contaminated ammunition. He certainly didn't put it past a Decepticon.
He wriggled his way up the cable, trying not to twitch with impatience at the slowness of their climb. One by one his teammates were helped over the edge of the airlock by Mirage and into the Decepticon warship. They huddled in the airlock, trying not to be too visible or noisy. With the ship nose-down, they were standing on what would have been the forward wall of the airlock. Prowl was quietly glad the Decepticons built their ships on such a large scale, comfortably large enough to hold five Autobots and a corpse with room to spare. Jazz knelt, respooling his cable.
That inner door shouldn't be open, Prowl realised as he climbed into the airlock. It should be physically impossible for both doors to be open at once.
The sniper lay dead on the 'floor', a neat hole through the back of his head. His face was spattered against the floor. Chips of optic crystal sparkled and crunched underfoot. The Decepticon hadn't seen or even heard Mirage until the sniper was standing on top of him. Prowl crouched to quickly examine the dead body. Mirage looked on dispassionately, neatly dividing his time between look out of the open door, then down at Prowl and the corpse, then through the inside door into the dark, silent corridors. Smokescreen was looking into the ship as well, giving Prowl only quick glances when he made a noise. Jazz crouched at the outer door, spooling up his cable, his expression troubled. Bluestreak stared, arms slack, mouth open slightly as he watched Prowl handle the corpse with cool detachment.
Prowl lifted the Decepticon's head and turned it towards him. The face was gone, now nothing but a messy exit wound. Mirage must have fired at very close range. Ignoring his own distaste, Prowl slipped two fingers into the exit wound and felt for the Decepticon's backstrut. Near that he found the central information cables. He rolled the exposed ends between his fingers; they were entirely without current.
"He's dead," Prowl whispered, standing up.
Mirage nodded, as if to say of course.
"Now what?" Smokescreen asked, keeping a watchful look onto the corridor.
Prowl shook his hands, flicking away drops of the corpse's lubricant. We need to find a safe place so Jazz and Bluestreak can compose themselves. Then we need to find the bridge, to find out what happened, and finally secure the stealth components. But that will have to wait. He thought for a moment, adding the details of the corridor to his mental plan of the ship. This airlock is halfway down the rear half of the ship, so the section interchange will be about fifteen thousand feet below us. Jazz's spare cable will reach that easily. From there it will be another fifteen thousand feet to the bridge. He looked down at his tattered shins and thought carefully. "We need to climb down to the section interchange and find a way into the forward section of the ship. If I attempt to climb with my legs in this condition, the cable will be destroyed. We do not have time to effect repairs. Therefore, Jazz, you are going to lead the remainder of the team down to the section interchange. You will locate and secure the interchange blast-door control chamber and you will use that to repower the blast-doors and access the forward sections."
"But what 'bout you?" Jazz asked.
"I'll stay here and ensure that our escape route remains secure," Prowl said firmly. "From here I can maintain a careful watch on the outside as well. I suspect our enemies are all outside the ship now. Jazz, a word." He took the saboteur's arm and leaned close to converse by touch. [Jazz, when you get to the blast chamber controls, I want you to stop and rest. Bluestreak is shaken and Mirage probably needs a chance to recharge.]
[Gotcha,] Jazz replied with a nod.
[Do you want to leave the grappling cable here or take it into the front section?]
Jazz's face went carefully blank. [Uh, I'll decide when we're down there.]
Prowl patted his shoulder gently. [Don't push yourself too hard. You've done a lot of work and probably need to recharge as much as Mirage does.] He didn’t mention what was becoming obvious to him - that Jazz needed rest to uncloud his mind. He didn't mention that he was becoming worried by Smokescreen either; the tactician was clearly nervous, disturbed by his fall into the corpse-pit, but Prowl calculated he was mentally strong enough to continue.
[Yeah, right,] Jazz said without flippancy. "'kay troops, we're moving out." He straightened his arm out and ejected the whole grappling mechanism. Quickly and neatly he pried out a wall-panel near the airlock door and hooked the grappling hook under the doorframe. Prowl approved; it looked secure as it could be without welding. "Mirage, you want to do the honours?"
Mirage shrugged, glanced outside the ship for a second, then vanished. Prowl saw the cable wriggle as the sniper started to climb down. Jazz and Smokescreen stood on either side of the airlock door, peering into the gloom.
After a few moments, the cable twanged as Mirage flicked it with a finger. Jazz beckoned the other two on then hopped over the doorframe, almost sliding down the cable.
As Bluestreak and then Smokescreen followed, Prowl sat down to take a closer look at the corpse.
This was no helicopter, that had been obvious on the very first glance. The dead Decepticon was a car of some sort, low and sleek and powerful. A pursuit vehicle, Prowl thought, noting the tyre-cutter mini-missiles mounted on the leading edge of the Decepticon's hood.
The sniper was of a similar size and transformation scheme to Mirage - nothing strange there - and his wheels were small with thick, dense tyres. An enforcer? Prowl wondered. Someone of that sort meant the ship had been crewed by Decepticons loyal to the commander of one of the Decepticons' colonies, perhaps even a crew built in the colonies, Decepticons who had never seen Cybertron or even Autobots before. Built to go fast on something flat. Definitely not from a fringe colony. One of the bigger colonies? Some Decepticon fortress-world? Prowl wracked his databanks for such a world but there were none in the immediate area. So how far away did this crew come from? Was there just this one lone colonial? There were other, more complex possibilities - the endless interweavings of Decepticon politics, backstabbing and sabotage - but those would have to wait for more data.
Prowl examined the body for identifying marks - subgroup decals, the logo of a local commander or hero, even autograffiti but nothing. The sniper's body was a glossy black blankness. Prowl mentally transformed him to get an idea of his altmode but it told him nothing, just a minor variant on one of the few mass-produced Decepticon car forms.
Prowl's fingers touched rough metal. He lifted the Decepticon's left arm away from his body and saw, close to the shoulder joint where it would be almost invisible to the casual observer, a set of deep scratches.
Prowl's battle computer flashed warnings. He drew his fingers away and looked more closely. The cuts - they were cuts, deep and neat and parallel - were angled down the body, as if he'd cut himself with a blade in his right hand. They were clean and deliberate and - Prowl looked closely - lined with rust.
An autocorroder, he realised. Both wounds and rust were self-inflicted. How did that connect with this Decepticon's continued survival when all his comrades had apparently vanished or died? These cuts can't be that recent, even if he rubbed rust spores in them. He wiped his hands on the Decepticon's back, hoping any spores would cling to the body and not to him.
Prowl sat down opposite the corpse, his feet drawn up so that he could pick at the shrapnel with his free hand. The other held his rifle in a loose grip, ready to aim at any threat on either the inside or the outside of the ship.
A ship from the colonies, with a colonial crew and a new stealth generator, and it crashes here in a strange fashion. Most of the crew are dead. The remainder are missing, possibly even fled. The ship is a mess.
He settled down to wait.
What happened here?