Koi's Notebook

080504 - Word Painting #3

Sun, 04 May 2008 12:20:45 GMT

4/5/08 - Word Painting #

         Slitherish wet and foul-scented, whatever it was slipped out between the wall-panels and began to pool on the floor, much like a thin spill of watery milk. More of it oozed feebly out of the wall; the panels - upright planks twice-varnished in fifty years - were damp to the touch at the best of times, and it took me a second to wonder if this wasn't just something architectural failing.
         It - this viscid pale stuff gelling on the floor in a puddle - was rather too animate to be rotting insulation or similar. It stirred itself, little eddies circling in its substance. It was pale, like the more liquid parts of rotten milk, but not so much liquid as ... well, old glue, really. It gave off a faint smell of vomit as it moved, just enough to catch the back of my throat and make me hack.
         God, the things I put up with for cheap lodgings, I told myself, getting out of bed and putting my shoes on straight over my bare feet. I had some nebulous intention of catching it in a bottle or dish and showing it to the landlady in demand for a rent reduction - although if she reduced the rent any more she'd be paying me to stay, not that she shouldn't be.
         The puddle turned gently in its slimy currents, thinner patches - darker patches, really - coalescing on the surface. Three patches, vaguely round, vaguely suggestive of wide, sad eyes and an open mouth.
         "Don't expect that to help," I told it, rattling around in the sink for something suitable to contain it. "If you insist upon pouring through my wall in the middle of the night then you can expect no sympathy from me."
         A few bubbles formed around the larger, more mouth-like of the patches. The eye-like patches contrived to resemble even more the eyes of a kicked spaniel. I advanced on it with grubby bowl in hand. It bubbled a bit and spread out some more.
         Standing over it, I looked down into its imitation of a face, which looked back at me with the most mournful of expressions a blotchy pool of fluid can manage. Just looking at it harshly felt cruel.
         "And what, I wonder, will Mrs Besand have to say about you?" I asked it, stooping down to start scooping.
         It bubbled at the mouth some more, and began to soak into the carpet. I swore at it and reached down tentatively with the bowl - I wasn't sure what this stuff was and, well, it didn't look healthy to touch - although I was shy of it by several inches.
         It blew a particularly large bubble that burst with a rancid smell, and I recoiled, covering my face with my free hand. That tipped me up rather and I fell backwards onto the floor. From this angle, seen between my knees, the stuff was just a big puddle of milky water.
         It soaked rapidly into the carpet, and I watched it go. Perhaps Mrs Besand would have an explanation in the morning.

080503 - Word Painting #2

Sat, 03 May 2008 13:17:51 GMT

2/5/08 - 510 words on Omicron Rising

3/5/08 - Word Painting #2

         Red cloth dragging on worn-out stairs, long train of blood-silk scraping around worm-eaten bannisters, leads me on. Can hear the soft pad of bare feet on the wood steps, mostly lost in their sad old creaking. Can hear breath, panting, mine, exhausted. Staircase goes on forever.
         Can hear a laugh, more a memory of a laugh I heard, a laugh that finished before I realised I was hearing it so it's caught only in memory - a sound I can't remember hearing, only that I heard. It's a laugh like frosted glass earrings - are those a memory too? - a bunch of tiny blue grapes dangling from an earlobe, all framed by golden hair. The memory of the laugh is like an old perfume, fading back across the senses, receding into archived thought.
         The trail of silk rounds another corner, splashed with dim afternoon light through another tall, narrow, iron-framed window. Outside the sky is bluish, greyish, too cloudy to be white but too bright to be any colour. The dust hazes up the patches of light, the slanted columns of incoming grey-whiteness. The motes are thick in the air but I can't taste them.
         The silk slips around the bannister - that dress must be ten feet long, I can hear her feet - her feet? - on the floor above my head. That dress must be heavy. It's a wonder it hasn't torn, but the hem's still perfect, still tight and shiny, bright amongst these grey-dim walls and this grey-white light.
         The dust is thick near the walls, in the recess of the steps where her dress won't brush at it, but her footprints are wiped away by that slithering silk. Except - just once or twice - when she has to jump over a broken step, one that's worn down too far - and then I can catch glimpses of toe-marks in the dust. I haven't the time to stop and look, because she's still running up these stairs - god, how many floors up are we now? Fifteen? Twenty? My chest feels about fit to burst - and she never seems to slow down. It's pushing me hard just to keep that blood-red hem in view.
         There's a trace of that laugh again - an echo? She must be three flights ahead of me, well above me, who the hell made her a dress this long? If I could just catch the hem - that laugh, like something written on one of the walls, glimpsed as I run past. Something that might have been a word, more probably a stain or a casual crumbling. The walls are concrete, rather damp-looking, all blotched with god knows what. The steps were wooden but now they're concrete.
         Must be almost thirty floors up now. How tall is this damn building? Could have sworn it wasn't this tall when I followed her in. Haven't even seen her yet, just caught sight of this dress floating past. Had to follow. Had to find out who the hell comes to a place like this - all ruins, all up on the hillsides, all forgotten and damp - in a dress like that.
         That silk isn't even damp, even after all this rushing, after all the dust and the wet air.
         The stairs are iron here, pretty rusty but still firm. They're bolted straight into the walls - those are still concrete, but paler, a sort of off-white stuff, not like the dim grey downstairs.
         Window in the wall. New, that. Small square thing, panes thick and liquid-looking. More light. Less blotches on the wall. Red silk keeps looking brighter. Like a tongue? Spilt paint? Floats now, not dragging on the floor. Less dust up here. Must be a breeze from somewhere, but I can't feel it. God, my knees hurt. Not sure how much longer I can go on.
         Not sure how many days I've been running for ...

080501 - Word Painting #1

Thu, 01 May 2008 15:00:16 GMT

20/4/08-30/4/08 - Ill

1/5/08 - Word Painting #1

         Limited dances in a blind kingdom, spiral towers torqued nightwards and tilted, dripping lights over grey desert. Ripples of windbreath stirring dead dust - earth's skin, desiccated - exposing scorpions with hulls shimmering in charcoal shades. Green flares sicken and fade overhead, silent explosions mildewing the sky.
         Lengths of microfine wire dangle from the tipped plates of the spires, bird-slicing, dewed with gluey perfume gum. The ends drip on concrete foundations heaved and cracked when the towers began to slip, accumulating sebaciously in gummy mounds; the most expensive of flytraps. The scorpions feed there. The wires shift in the rare breezes, glinting out sheafs of blinking starlets.
         Upon smooth-as-mirror balconies and slick oil-black tiled floors, amongst the muddle of brocade cushions fading into gold thread and dust, between sheets of sheer silk and soft linen, lie brown and sticky bones. Occasional skulls tumble from the balconies when the winds shake out their hair and clothe up the towers in cloud-gowns. They shatter on the hummocked foundations, revealing centuries-old brains congealed into paste. Not even the scorpions will eat that filth.
         Most of the bones lie on the balconies, little hand-bones fallen back from the rails where their reached up, stretched towards the sky. During the day, small birds like bundles of blue ash perch amongst them, pecking for insects. When it rains, the birds escape into the towers, making homes of the homes no longer lived in by people. Many of the balcony doors stand open, exclaiming portals into crumbling luxury. The birds make nests amongst the bones and cushions, raise broods in kitchen sinks. Everything that could fall has fallen; the floors are litter-piles of smashed crockery, broken cups, tipped-over glasses. The occasional knife sticks up, untarnished and gleaming thirstily, thinking of chick-murder.
         The vultures came and went centuries ago. Their last broods are bone amongst the bones, pale bird rib arched over wet brown man rib, hook-beaked skull fallen between woman-shoulder and child-spine.
         At night, when the heat bleeds out of the sand, when the tarmac-slimed streets cease to shimmer, the desert begins to breathe softly. The sands drum gently, distantly, and the scorpions burrow to hide. The towers shiver, their foundations resting upon the singing sands, and so the desert sings through them. Their tops of smashed antennae, their few remaining windowpanes - they vibrate like drum-skins, like larynxes - shivering out a long note of simple presence.
         In the towers the sticky bones rattle, shaken around in their patches of stain, the bled-out smears of decay. Here and there a bone makes a final tumble, tips from a balcony or rolls down a stair. Even the starvelings of the last vultures wouldn't touch the marrow split out there.
         As the desert cools and the stars stretch out above, the scorpions rise up from the grey sand. They swam to the feet of the towers, climbing rasp-footed over cracked concrete. They ring the towers and raise their claws, raise up their elegant stings, raise up their beaded eyes to the towers and, voiceless, mouthparts shifting, pray for the towers to fall.

080419 - Furthermore, Still in a Swamp

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:46:58 GMT

30/3/08 - Ill
31/3/08 - Day Off
1/4/08 - Ill
2/4/08 - 854 words on Taste of Empires
3/4/08 - Ill
4/4/08 - 6/4/08 - Holiday
7/4/08 - Ill
8/4/08 - Fail
9/4/08 - Commission work
10/4/08 - Fail
11/4/08 - Commission work
12/4/08 - Ill
13/4/08 - Ill
14/4/08 - 1945 words on Stormhangar
15/4/08 - 548 words on Stormhangar
16/4/08 - Ill
17/4/08 - Day Off
18 /4/08 - Ill

19/4/08 - Furthermore, Still in a Swamp

         "Where are we going?" Brad asked as Manuel turned the Swamp Bug through unfamiliar twists of swamp-grove.
         "Village," Manuel said. "Need to speak to a few friends of mine about the palace. Wouldn't want it to spread."
         Brad felt his heart thump against the inside of his ribcage like a dog jumping up at a meaty bone at the mention of the village. The village was safe, the village had solid ground, the village had women ... the village had Ellie.
         The Swamp Bug left the groves, breaking out onto a broad stretch of river, and Manuel actually put the hovercraft into fourth gear for the first time Brad had ever seen. He could feel something approaching a breeze picking up from the speed.
         "Hey," Brad said, looking around at the river - thirty feet wide or more, the colour of wrinkled tinfoil dull under the cloudy, humid sky. "Don't you get the big congapedes in the open water?"
         "Not here," Manuel said. "This one is too narrow for a big king. They are all downstream, in the big delta past Panabella. Hasn't been a big king here since the flu epidemic."
         "Flu?" Brad asked.
         "Flu," Manuel replied, nodding energetically. Brad suspected he must be looking incredulous. "When the people came here from Earth - from Brasilla?"
         "Brazil," Brad said.
         "There," Manuel said, shrugging. "They found that the king congapedes could get the flu from humans. Couple of other diseases too. But not the cold."
         "The what?" Brad asked, looking back. The river slithered away behind them into the grey and green trees.
         "The cold." Manuel pulled the Swamp Bug back into third gear. Ahead was a thick band of trees, thick-trunked and heavy-branched. "It was a disease people got a lot a eighty years ago. My mother told me about it once. Something to do with soup and chickens. But the kings wouldn't get it. That's why people came here, to study the kings."
         "And then?"
         "They found a cure, and went away again, and some people were left behind here." Manuel tipped his hat back. "My mother said it was dried then. When the kings all died, they stopped eating the river bugs, so the river bugs ate all the river grass and the trees got everywhere, until everything was silted up." He scratched behind one ear. "It took a few years for the little kings who'd survived to grow up, but they were all immune to the flu, so once they were back they were back. They ate the bugs, the grass grew, the saplings died, the rivers washed the silt away. Washed a lot of villages away when the rivers really started to rise again. Washed most of the people back out of the swamp."
         "Ever been out of the swamp?" Brad asked.
         "Mhm, mhm." Manuel nodded. "I go to town on the bus once or twice a year. Buy some of this, some of that."
         "Why'd you come back?" Brad asked, looking up at the clustered branches dangling over the river.
         "I live here," Manuel said. "It's my home."
         The river forked around the band of trees, left and right, and Manuel turned the hovercraft into the right fork. The landscape snapped into shape for Brad, and he recognised the village.
         It was built around a platform of concrete half a mile across - a broken ring of wooden houses on tall stilts. The stilts were webbed together with branches and weeds and all sorts, and that got thick with silt. A silt-bank had formed, boomerang-shaped around the upstream side, and the tree-bank had grown up on it.
         Manuel brought the Swamp Bug right up onto the concrete platform and parked it politely in the corner, well away from the big yellow circle in the middle. There were a few women standing around, leaning on the platform's rusted rails. Brad realised it must be Thursday; they were waiting for their children to come home from school.
         "We going to drop these leaves off while we're here?" Brad asked as Manuel turned the engine off and jumped out of the hovercraft.
         "I'll speak to Fernando," Manuel said. "Perhaps he will store them until Monday. But it doesn't matter much. We'll be going home tonight either way."
         "What about burning the palace?"
         "Too late in the day. Tomorrow, maybe, or Saturday. Even Sunday. Better Sunday. If anyone gets hurt they can go on the bus on Monday morning." Manuel resettled his had a bit. "Don't wander too far, Brad."
         Brad didn't plan to. There wasn't anything much to see here, just people's houses, and the few women standing around. But it was nice to get out of the Swamp Bug and walk up and down on firm ground - on concrete of all things - for once.
         He heard the buzz and the barking together and stepped well back, right up against the hovercraft, before looking around. He knew the hovercraft and its owner and its owner's dog all from just that sound.
         The big hovercraft slid up out of the swamp and came to a stop right in the middle of the bus's landing port. One of the women gave the driver a nasty look and was ignored.
         Earl Sawney, Brad thought, watching the big man climb out of the high seat on the hovercraft. His mastiff, Crusader, jumped out of the hovercraft and lunged about, yanking at the heavy chain anchored to one of the hovercraft's cleats. Behind Crusader, Tinker Sawney - Earl's brother, a lean and hatchetty man where his brother was massive and fleshy, quiet and mean where Earl was loud and mean - threw a metal trap over the side. Brad recognised Earl's other dog, Bobby, a wretched collie type, wet and shivering inside.
         Cloe Coller, Earl's cousin, was the last to get off the hovercraft. Brad didn't know much about him, he was just a guy - middle build, middle height, middle age - but he was the one carrying the guns.
         "Didn't hit nothing, Cloe?" Brad called.
         "Didn't find nothing," Cloe yelled back. He wore large sunglasses and had a moustache, always wore a shirt. That was about all Brad could say about him. "Some days they just hear us coming."
         Earl spat over the edge of the hovercraft. "Didn't help none you got us lost. I'm telling you, you can't navigate for shit."
         Cloe shrugged one shoulder. Nobody ever spoke back to Earl. Nobody spoke to Earl if they could avoid it at all.
         In the cage at Tinker's feet, Bobby risked a whine. Tinker kicked the cage. "Aw, shut up. Damn dog."
         "Reckon you should feed him more," Brad said. "Maybe he's too thin to be bait." It made him sick to say it, but it wasn't like Earl or even Tinker would give a damn about the dog otherwise.
         "Listen, you son of a pig," Earl shouted. Brad looked up at the man, all pink skin and bright red Hawaiian shirt. "That's my dog there. I'm the only man in this damn swamp who can keep a dog alive for more than a day, so don't you lecture me and mine none. You don't know nothing son." He tipped his head forwards, glaring at Brad over his sunglasses. "I know what happened to your dog, boy."
         Brad raised his hand as if tipping his cap. "Yessir," he said, and shut up. The third night he'd stayed in the village, Earl and kicked the bejesus out of him for trying to pat Bobby. He'd been lucky not to lose teeth.
         Cloe came back from Earl's house - the biggest, the one with barred windows and a bit like a boat's platform on the top so Earl could shoot things from home - and turned Bobby out of the trap. The collie-mix slunk back to the house, belly almost on the floor, ears pinned back, looking around fearfully. Crusader snapped at him as he went past.
         Bobby glanced at Brad as went, tail tucked between his legs.
         Man, if dogs could cry ... Brad thought.
         The door of Earl's house opened and Ellie came out onto the stoop, all tired in the face. Her hair was all mussed and wet, almost black with water. Brad knew she dyed it red; he wondered if that was what she'd been doing.
         "Woman!" Earl shouted, still busy in the hovercraft. "What the hell you playing at taking a bath at this time of day? Get my damn bath ready! If my bath water's cold I'll turn you out into the river!"
         Ellie rolled her eyes and went back into the house. Brad watched her arse as she went. Bastard, he thought, wondering what the hell Earl Sawney did to deserve her, except win some crumby lottery in some country Brad had never heard of. Who the hell'd win all that and spend it coming out here - brother, cousin, cousin's sister and all - just to live out some crazy quest shooting congapedes?
         He thought about why he was there, right in the middle of the Punando swamps, as far off the net as you could get without going to Alpha Centauri. Proxima Centauri was a good planet to hide - the swamps, the desert, the frozen waste near the north pole. Hell, if I wanted water I could've gone and hidden in the south ocean for ten years.
         He looked over his shoulder at the swamp, full of leechwood trees and palace spiderettes and pipette flies and king congapedes that could chomp your head clean off, the endless scummy water and the fragments of squishy ground and the incestuously tangled trees.
         I should've gone to the desert.

080329 - Quiet, part 11

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:08:33 GMT

29/3/08 - Quiet, part 11

         "What?" said Jazz, leaning over to look at Mirage around the Decepticon's corpse.
         "Why in here?" Mirage repeated. "This room is awkward to manoeuvre in without the artificial gravity - probably one of the most awkward on this ship - and it's not a room anyone would have cause to be in unless they were trying to manually open the section interchange blast doors."
         "Well, sure," Jazz said, shrugging. "Ship like this wouldn't need a big crew. Ten, fifteen tops. Probably were all on the bridge when it went down. Had to come out this way."
         "So they left the bridge, worked their way up the ship," Mirage said, skeins of annoyance weaving into his tone, "made their way through the blast doors - and then stopped, immediately, here, to torture their commander to death?"
         "Guess they were mad at him," Jazz said.
         "But why here?" Mirage pressed. Bother it, why did Prowl have to be injured? "Why not, oh, the outer airlock? They must have been in here for a reason, and the only reason to come in here is to open or close the blast doors."
         "Okay, so maybe the bridge caught fire or was gonna explode ... " Jazz said, shrugging again. "They had to bail out and here was where they stopped."
         "And that was enough to kill their commander?" Mirage replied, shouldering his rifle and leaning against what had been the floor. "Their ship was down, their gravity was off, their bridge was perhaps on fire ... and they killed their commander for that?"
         "Guess he wasn't very popular," Jazz said. He shrugged again, mouth pulling to one side in a sort of grimace. "I ain't Prowl, man. This sort of thinking jumps his circuits, not mine."
         "Prowl would be most useful here, I agree," Mirage said, "but I am reluctant to go ahead whilst we're still so uncertain of what happened here."
         "We're on a timer, 'member?" Jazz said. "Sooner we're in and out the better."
         "If the Decepticons were so eager to get away from their own bridge, surely we should consider why before waltzing in their ourselves," Mirage said, trying to get his point over to the saboteur. Oh, the perils of working with one whose mandate is essentially a solitary one. "Jazz, it appears that half the crew of this ship is dead for no good reason. What if the cause is on the bridge?"
         "Then why'd they dump their dead outside?" Jazz replied.
         "There is a third option," Smokescreen said, causing them both to look up at him. He seemed better for the few minutes rest, optics brighter and doors held higher. "They may have stripped and killed their commander because he wanted them to go outside, where the danger was, whilst they are holed up on the bridge."
         Jazz looked at his feet. "Man, talk about being halfway between Vos and Tarn and all outta gas." He looked up again. "Smokey, you're the tactician. Talk tactics to me."
         "I'm no Prowl, but my guess is that the crew are hiding on the bridge. They're afraid of something out here, sufficiently afraid to kill their commander when he tried to order them outside."
         "No," and it was Bluestreak, raising his head and rubbing his face. "They were running away from the bridge. They were running away and stopped here because they had the blast doors between them and ... it. And then they killed him for letting it out." He rubbed his sensor-crests. "I think I'm all right now."
         "You sure?" Smokescreen asked, nudging Bluestreak's door with his own.
         "Yeah. I just zoned out for a while," the gunner replied. "I'm fine. Why are there so many helicopters?"
         "What?" Jazz said.
         Bluestreak pointed at the Decepticon. "He was a helicopter, and he was in charge. There were three helicopters that shot at us. You said there were probably only fifteen of them. That's four helicopters in fifteen."
         "I saw two jets at least, dead," Smokescreen said. "A couple of armoured cars and a half-track or light tank. No helicopters."
         "But that is a high percentage of helicopters," Mirage said, concerned. Helicopters - Vector Sigma's way of proving that crazy and manoeuvrable mix well. Good thing Bluestreak is here. Good thing I brought plenty of ammunition.
         "Hey, we're indoors, they ain't so bad inside," Jazz said, trying to lighten the mood.
         "Unless they're the sort that use their rotors as swords, or carry flamethrowers," Bluestreak said.
         "We could get lucky," Smokescreen offered. "They might all be dead. It'd explain why everything's so quiet."
         "Speakin' of quiet, enough chatter," Jazz said, holding up a hand. "Time we got on with the mission. Come on, someone help me get these doors open."

080328 - Quiet part 10

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:02:01 GMT

9/3/08 - 1360 words on Stormhangar
10/3/08 - 650 words on Stormhangar
11/3/08 - 746 words on Stormhangar
12/3/08 - Day Off
13/3/08 - Fail
14/3/08 - 1216 words on Stormhangar
15/3/08 - 17/3/08 - Blocked [computer problems]
18/3/08 - 615 words on Stormhangar
19/3/08 - 1305 words on Stormhangar
20/3/08 - Ill
21/3/08 - 690 words on Stormhangar
22/3/08 - 24/3/08 - Ill
25/3/08 - 731 words on Taste of Empires
26/3/08 - Ill
27/3/08 - Ill

28/3/08 - Quiet, part 10

         Mirage crept into the interchange control chamber and almost fell to the bottom of the room. The chamber was circular, the walls curving down and away in banks of consoles, down to the manual airlock controls at what was once the far wall and was now the floor.
         In the middle of the room was a Decepticon. Silently climbing around him, Mirage checked the wide room carefully, scanning for any sign of camouflaged enemy, then switched off his electro-disrupted and snuck back to signal the others to come in.
         They climbed in carefully, wiggling in through the door and dropping onto the side of the first console. Mirage hung one-handed from the door-frame to assist his comrades in. Bluestreak stopped dead on the first console and stared, jaw dropped and head tilted to one side, one hand half-raised as if he'd been about to point and ask 'What's that?' when he realised. Smokescreen climbed in and just sat down heavily on the first console. Jazz had to shimmy in around them and hang from the door-frame whilst Mirage climbed up to the console that would once have been on the right of the door. Mirage pulled out the insides of the console and hung from that whilst Jazz worked the manual release that closed the control chamber's doors.
         "Why did they do that?" Bluestreak asked, pointing at the Decepticon.
         "Don't know," Jazz said, sliding down to the bottom of the room.
         The Decepticon hung from pins driven through his wrists, fastened to cables that were attached to the middle of what had been the ceiling and the floor. A wreckage hung on his back, perhaps once a bulky rotor-pack. His limbs were similarly savaged, armour chiselled open and internal workings pulled out. Most of them lay scattered and crushed on the floor below them, scattered under Jazz's feet. The Decepticon's head hung forwards, broken jaw resting against the shelf of his chest. His visor was cracked; it looked to Mirage as if someone had tried to crush their commander's head and managed to drive their thumbs into his optic sockets.
         Across his torso was a broad smear of melted metal, a symbol drawn into it with a fingertip or gun-barrel. Mirage didn't recognise the design. It looked to be a name, but the calligraphy was so crude and the melted metal so warped that it was barely discernible.
         Mirage looked down at the Decepticon, hanging where he'd been tortured to death. Nailed to the floor and the ceiling ... the floor and the ceiling? "This Decepticon was killed after the crash."
         "Yup. Looks like somebody made a few enemies," Jazz said, standing with his hands on his hips regarding the corpse.
         "But why ... ?" Bluestreak asked again.
         "cause they're Decepticons," Jazz said with a shrug. "'cause half of them'd died of something weird and he didn't have an answer. 'cause he was unpopular an' this whole thing is a weird mutiny. 'cause he shot the wrong 'con's partner. Somethin' like that."
         "Any idea what that is on his chest?" Mirage asked, changing grip on the console. He was weary, nerve cables snarled up with tension. He wanted a break from corpses and strangeness. Whilst the very definition of a military operation is that it will go wrong, this is getting more deeply wrong that usual.
         Jazz leant close and peered. "Hey, he's cold," he said. "Been this way since yesterday at least. Don't know the sign though ... looks like it could be a 'freeze' or a 'winter' ... and that's a 'crypt' ... and a ... uh ... 'wall'? 'City'? 'Fence'?"
         "I believe Prowl mentioned a Decepticon warlord named Wintercrypt once," Mirage said, holding his rifle close. It was good and familiar and reliable, reassuring. "A colonial warlord. Ambitious - well, a Decepticon warlord."
         "But the 'wall'?" Jazz wondered.
         "Could be 'prison'," Smokescreen said, not sitting up.
         "Guess it could," Jazz said, leaning back and considering, hand to chin. "It's a total mess. Can't make out the punctuation at all."
         Mirage wondered how Hound was, and even if he was still alive.
         "He's not like the others," Smokescreen said. "There wasn't a mark on them."
         "Yup," Jazz said. "Somebody wanted this 'con to suffer for something."
         Bluestreak made an unhappy sound and looked away. "We should move on," he said, small-voiced and gauzy-opticced.
         "We oughta take five and rest a bit," Jazz said. "But here ain't the place."
         Mirage swung himself down from the console and slithered to the bottom of the room. His servos were warm from all the climbing and his joints were starting to ache. "I suppose you want me to take point."
         "Can't think of anyone better qualified," Jazz said cheerily. Then his expression flickered. "You needing fuel?"
         "I wouldn't say no to a breem for recharge," Mirage said. "My electro-disruptor does drain my fuel cells rather."
         Jazz glanced at Smokescreen, huddled in a heap by the door, and Bluestreak, staring in blank distress at the opposite wall. "You sit this one out, charge your cells. I'll get the airlock open. Hey, Bluestreak!"
         The gunner looked down at him, face empty except for a vague suggestion of horror.
         "Stay there, Bluestreak," Jazz said, a friendly order. "Take a load off and get yourself together. I'm gonna get the airlock open, okay?" Bluestreak nodded, optics flickering, and sat down next to Smokescreen. With a satisfied nod, Jazz turned and ducked behind the Decepticon to work on the blast doors.
         Mirage looked at the dead Decepticon, grim and broken, stripped and ravaged, hung up in a room nobody would use much, nobody would go into often, a room whose shape made it hard to move around in without artificial gravity.
         "Jazz," he said, "why was he killed in here?"

080308 - Lost in Transmission

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:15:41 GMT

15/2/08 - 1305 words on The Other God of Charr
16/2/08 - Day Off
17/2/08 - 740 words on Omicron Rising
18/2/08 - 553 words on Taste of Empires
19/2/08 - 21/2/08 - Ill
22/2/08 - 681 words on Stormhangar
23/2/08 - Fail
24/2/08 - 1342 words on Stormhangar
25/2/08 - Day Off
26/2/08 - Day Off
27/2/08 - Ill
28/2/08 - Ill
29/2/08 - 901 words on Stormhangar
1/3/08 - Ill
2/3/08 - 1089 words on Stormhangar
3/3/08 - 7/3/08 - Ill

8/3/08 - Lost in Transmission

         Soundwave sat back in his seat, the screens before him dim and the command chamber quiet. Behind him Megatron stood glowering over a map, deep in thought. On Soundwave's right Rumble was loaded into the computer, spooling through three days' worth of recorded television in search of anything useful.
         Soundwave sat back and listened.
         Seven cables ran from Soundwave's workstation into his data jacks. Four carried human radio signals, monitoring vast swathes of frequencies - long wave, short wave, medium and satellite. The other three carried signals from the patrolling jets: Skywarp, roaming the North Atlantic on the fringes of the Artic; Dirge, scanning the west coast of Africa; Starscream, combing the Gulf of Mexico.
         [M one nine to V one,] Skywarp called softly, voice inflectionless in automatic report, [Position two three five by one three seven by forty-three. Zero zero, weather to follow.] All clear, sensor readings transmitted in a quick flicker of code. Soundwave dumped the data to his workstation and let the base computer add it its model of Earth's resources and weather-systems.
         [S one to V one,] Starscream called, flat, bored, transmitting on deep automatic well below conscious thought. [Position nine eight two by eight seven seven by fifty-nine. Zero zero, weather to follow.] Soundwave glanced into Starscream's data, plunging himself into clear blue skies over clear blue water, into a mesh of wind and the smell of salt water.
         [M three eight to V one,] Dirge called, full voice, bored and morose. [West of Angola, just passing Luanda on my way south. Nothing to report.] His communication closed.
         Soundwave moved, flicked keys to single out Dirge and to transmit to him. [V 1 calling M three eight, transmit weather.]
         [There's nothing to report,] Dirge complained. [No wind, no waves, sun's going down. It's dead sky.]
         [Transmit weather,] Soundwave ordered. Dirge complied, overloading his transmitter to hit Soundwave with a squeal of data. Soundwave ignored it and dumped the data to his workstation.
         On his right Rumble ejected from the computer. "Man, these flesh-germs watch a lot of rubbish," he said, sprawling across his seat. "Can I take a break, Soundwave? I think my processor's going to melt from boredom."
         "Operation status?" Soundwave asked, human transmissions singing away in one side of his brain.
         "I'm about three-quarters of the way through. Gimme a breem off and it'll be done by the time my shift's over, I swear," Rumble said, his voice pleading.
         "Request allowed," Soundwave said, fine-tuning a few stations. "One breem."
         "Thanks boss! You won't notice I'm gone," Rumble said, jumping down from his seat and leaving the room quickly. Soundwave tilted his head a little, listening for any reaction from Megatron, but the tyrant was silent, off in some far tower of thought.
         Soundwave lifted his hands from the keyboard and began to cycle through the human stations playing in his head. They washed over him like soft brushes, tickling his mind with odd chords and fragments of words - the jangle of adverts, the precise tones of announcers, the patter of a disk-jockey on speed, the chatter and effects of radio plays, and all between the endless, limitless music.
         Soundwave heard guitars strum and squeal across the ether, drums thumping dimly amongst static and interference, low throbs of bass pressing against his senses like heavy velvet. Human voices shrieked and crooned and - too often, Soundwave thought - wheedled off-key. He sloshed through repeats of Top 40 hits, through muddled radio plays mushed into pirate radio, the occasional snap and buzz of an ambulance or police car and the plainchant of the shipping forecast.
         Audio salad, Soundwave thought, snatching the phrase out of the jungle of signals. Jambalaya signals. The words meant less than the rhythm of their sounds. Jalambalaya balamalamam lalalama ... Soundwave hummed in his mind, idly tapping his fingers on the keyboard.
         [M one nine to V one,] Skywarp interrupted him. Soundwave's hands stopped, the beat lost. [Position two three five by one three eight by forty-four. Zero zero, weather to follow.]
         Soundwave dumped the data straight into the terminal and slumped in his chair, head back, faintly annoyed at losing his new beat, waiting until the other two Seekers reported in and he could go back to sound-surfing. Reminder; recommend fewer patrol sweeps to Megatron.
         Silence on the Decepticon radio. Soundwave raised his head. Starscream had missed his check-in.
         [M three eight to V one,] Dirge said, forestalling a call on Starscream. [West of Angola, just passing Lobito, heading south, blah blah blah. Nothing to report. This is so boring I might just crash myself for entertainment. Weather to follow,] he finished in grumpy tones. Soundwave dumped the data to the workstation automatically, ignoring Dirge.
         The Decepticon channels went silent.
         Soundwave waited, marking off seconds in his head. Starscream was thirty seconds overdue, an ice age for someone transmitting on automatic.
         Thirty-five seconds.
         Soundwave put his hands on the keyboard. [V one calling S one, report.]
         Silence.
         Forty seconds overdue.
         [V one calling S one, report.]
         Forty-five seconds.
         [V one calling, report signal.]
         [V one, this is M one nine. Receiving strength twelve.]
         [Soundwave, this is Dirge. I hear you fine.]
         [M three eight, maintain radio silence until notified,] Soundwave ordered. Dirge's channel went sullenly dormant. [V one to M one nine. Unable to raise Starscream.]
         [He's outta my range,] Skywarp replied. [I'm over Greenland, he's in the Bahamas.]
         [Acknowledged.]
         One hundred seconds.
         [V one calling S one, report or be reported!]
         [- oundwave?] came a voice loaded with static. The normally crystal-clear Decepticon channel buzzed, the black-and-white fuzz of sound pouring into Soundwave's head and smothering Starscream's voice. [- use - I've got - channel one by - ] Starscream's transmission cut, vanishing under the waves of static.
         Soundwave sat up, tapped at the keyboard. "Alert level four," he said, hearing Megatron turn at the sound of his voice. "Radio contact with Starscream disturbed."
         "Starscream is always disturbed," Megatron said. "What are the Autobots doing this time?"
         Soundwave put his call to Starscream on automatic, repeating every twelve seconds, and checked on the Autobots. Their jamming station in New York was still online, deafening Soundwave to anything in the northern half of the USA and most of Canada. He could dimly pick up echoes of the Ark's transmitters, tail ends of signals bounced off human satellites. [V one calling, report Autobot signals.]
         [Negative,] replied Dirge instantly.
         [I got nothing,] Skywarp said, [except ice on my tailfins.]
         [- V one, V one, answer, answer - ] Starscream's signal blurted over the radio, fizzling with static, his voice a hard edge amongst a mess of points.
         [V one receiving, signal distorted. S one, S one, signal bad, signal bad.]
         [- unclear - repeat, repeat,] Starscream's irritation was the most audible part of his signal, the rest a crashing wave of random noise.
         Soundwave adjusted the tuning, rotating the docking tower to point its better transceiver towards the south. [S one, S one, make channel eight-three-eight, channel eight-three-eight.] Soundwave set the message to keep repeating and put all his receivers on channel eight-three-eight.
         And waited.
         Five minutes now. Soundwave felt the prickling of unease spreading across his chest-door like cracks. Rumble sauntered back in, late, and jumped into his chair. The Infocon was about to transform and load himself into the computer when he glanced at Soundwave and stopped still.
         [- V one, V one, distress, distress - ]
         The signal boomed out of the ether through a roar of static, straight into Soundwave's head, automatically broadcast over of the command chamber's speakers. Soundwave heard Megatron stand up and walk over, heard Rumble climb onto the console and run along the keyboard to his side.
         [S one, S one, transmit position, transmit position]
         "What's going on?" Megatron asked, laying a hand on the back of Soundwave's seat. "Is he under attack?"
         [- V one, V -] The signal vanished, overrun by static.
         "Soundwave, get through to him," Megatron ordered.
         "Rumble, raise docking tower," Soundwave said, hoping the extra elevation would aid reception. [S one, S one, signal broken, signal broken.]
         "Docking tower's up," Rumble said. "Diverting auxiliary power to receivers."
         [- V one, V one, distress, distress.] Starscream's signal cleared. His voice was loud, anxious, confused, muddled with static.
         "What's causing that interference?" Megatron asked. "Rumble, sweep the radio for counter-signals."
         [S one, S one, receiving strength three,] Soundwave replied.
         [- ving strength two - ] Starscream said, words lost in static. [- can't find nor - interference on all inst - lost heading - got my marker?]
         [S one, S one, no marker heard, repeat no marker,] Soundwave replied.
         Starscream's reply was a crack of static, possibly a curse. [- V one, no heading - no - can't see - ]
         Static. The sound rose up like a wall of sighs.
         [- altimeter - last posi - malfunctioning - ] Starscream shouted, buried behind the mutter and moan of radio ghosts.
         The hiss and whine filled the command chamber. Soundwave heard Megatron's low, grating hiss of frustration, the tap of Rumble's hands on the keyboard. "No counter-signals, boss," the Infocon said. Soundwave almost jumped at his voice. "Want me to sent Astrotrain up with the communications relay?"
         "Negative," Megatron said, frowning at the readouts on Soundwave's console. "Starscream is barely a thousand miles from here."
         A red light began to flash on Soundwave's console. "Starscream's emergency beacon activated," Soundwave reported, hesitating.
         "Lock position and scramble the Seekers," Megatron ordered.
         Soundwave's fingers brushed over the keys, the emergency beacon echoing in his head. "Unable to resolve signal," he reported, a tremor in his fingers. "Emergency beacon received via satellite relay."
         The static whistled, keening in the bodiless realm. Soundwave wanted to turn it off. Decepticon radio didn't get static, ever.
         "Rumble, trace that beacon," Megatron said. "Soundwave, keep signalling Starscream. If this isn't the Autobots then it's probably nothing Starscream can't deal with on his own."
         [V one calling S one, V one calling S one, receive? Receive?]
         [- ne, S one, rece - strength two, stre -]
         [Starscream,] came an unexpected voice. [This is Optimus Prime. Can you hear me?]
         [- obots! Signal's ba - clear the air!]
         [V one to Ark, V one to Ark, clear air, clear air.]
         [Ark to Soundwave, received. We will continue to monitor. Sound off.]
         [- one, sky is - horizon is curved! - flying in circles? Chronome - magnetic re - ]
         "Magnetic interference?" Megatron said, wondering aloud. He stepped aside, taking over the workstation between Soundwave and Rumble. Soundwave heard him calling up the mapping data of the Bahamas, reviewing the magnetic data.
         [Seventy two,] said a voice on the radio. [Seventy one. Seventy.]
         Soundwave stopped dead still. Rumble stopped, looked up at the speakers. Megatron looked at Soundwave. "Who is that?" the tyrant demanded.
         "Unknown," Soundwave replied. The voice was low, smooth, entirely untouched by static. It was a human voice, speaking in English. "Transmitting on Cybertronian channels."
         "The humans do not possess such a capacity!" Megatron said. "Which Autobot is this?"
         [Sixty five. Sixty four,] the voice continued in calm, clear monotone.
         "None known," Soundwave replied.
         [- one, V one, repeat, six five six four what?] Starscream asked, the static on his signal deafening.
         [Sixty one,] said the voice, faceless, breaking through the static like a bullet through tinfoil. [Sixty. Fifty-nine.]
         [Ark to Soundwave,] came the voice of Optimus Prime. [That counting - it's not us.]
         "Megatron," Soundwave said. "Request orders."
         "Get Starscream's position, and get Prime off the air," Megatron said, voice grating. "Rumble, status?"
         "Can't trace nothing," Rumble replied. "Got a - a wall of interference between us and the Bahamas. I can't clear anything."
         [- V one, stop - what are these numbers?] Starscream shrieked, immediately blotted out.
         [Fifty. Forty-nine. Forty-eight.]
         [- stop it, stop it - can't tell whi - up or down - ]
         Megatron's fists tightened. "Soundwave, jam that counting."
         Soundwave compared channels and frequencies. "Enemy signal broadcasting on Starscream's frequency." [V one to S one, V one to S one, make emergency channel, emergency channel.]
         [- emergency chan - ] Starscream replied, jumping from channel eight-three-eight to two-seven-four. [- V-one - now?]
         [Thirty-one. Thirty.]
         "There's no way the Autobots could know what channel he's on!" Rumble protested.
         [Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven.] The voice was flat, without resonance, without the soft shadings of sound caused by the air-spaces in the human head, Soundwave realised. The voice was not Autobot, not Decepticon, not human.
         "That is no Autobot," Megatron said, frowning like murder. "Soundwave, get-"
         [Twenty-five. Twenty-four.]
         [- one, one, one, one!] Starscream's voice suddenly shouted, echoing over the radio. His voice wobbled back and forth, first one speaker then another, signal scattering, volume increasing.
         "He's coming from all over the place," Rumble said, pointing at his screen, the traced signal bouncing across thousands of miles of empty ocean. "Even he can't move that fast!"
         The dopplering screaming rose, overlapping, blurring into a loud squeal of feedback that climbed up and up until Soundwave had to mute his audios even though he could feel the sound beating on his chest until with a horrible rip of jagged noise the signal broke -
         The counting stopped.
         [- S one calling, signal clear?] Starscream said, exhausted, frightened. [Blown a bank of - get my posit - isit - counting?]
         [V one to S one, signal breaking,] Soundwave replied. [Unable to resolve your beacon.]
         [Eighteen. Seventeen.]
         Starscream screamed. Soundwave trembled.
         [Fourteen. Thirteen.]
         Megatron leant over Soundwave shoulders and hit the transmit button. [Starscream, get down! Get down on the ground!]
         [Ten. Nine.]
         [- tron? - hear you! - o ground, no ground, just water - should have seen - where - islands all gone?] His voice was panicked, shaking, almost pleading. [- istress, distress, can an - ]
         [Six. Five.]
         [Climb, you fool!] Megatron shouted over a thousand miles.
         [Three.]
         [- p. Can't find up -]
         [Two.]
         [- sky is turning -]
         [One.]
         The static stopped.
         The air deadened to utter silence. The counting was gone. There was no transmission, not even the slightest whisper of a signal. On the console, the red light of Starscream's emergency beacon faded and went out.
         [Starscream?] Megatron called. [Starscream, answer me!]
         Silence. Not even a hiss of static.
         [Starscream!] Megatron roared, and Soundwave had to lean away slightly. [Starscream, you coward, answer me!] The tyrant stood up, scowling, violence held back for a lack of target.
         [V one calling, V one calling. Report, report.]
         [Starscream, this is Dirge. What's going on?]
         [Optimus Prime calling Starscream, do you receive?]
         [Skywarp calling, Skywarp calling Starscream, answer!]
         [V one calling S one, V one calling S one, respond, respond.]
         Silence.
         [V one calling S one, respond.]
         Not even the whine of the ghosts of static.
         [V one calling S one, are you there?]
         Dead air.

Final Version Posted

080214 - Cold Fusion

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:47:24 GMT

8/2/08 - 13/2/08 - Ill
14/2/08 - 601 words on Taste of Empires

13/12/07 - Cold Fusion

         Soundwave heard Shockwave come in and sensed the familiar energy pattern peeking between the cyclopean commander's fingers, but wasn't fast enough to recognise it before Shockwave thrust his hand in front of Soundwave's face, the scrubber hanging from its shameful cables and said "Item: yours."
         "Assessment: incorrect," Soundwave said, taking his hands off the keyboard and leaning back in his seat. The simulation of Megatron's energy pattern shimmered in his face. He could hear its long, growling note of power and control, feel it hot on his mask. Shockwave; prying glitchbag.
         "Fact; item was recovered from your quarters. Fact; item was located in your workstation drawer. Fact; item is optimised for connection to systems prioritised for sonic and radio sensitivity. Conclusion; item is yours," Shockwave said, giving the scrubber a shake so that it swung before Shockwave's face.
         The cassette host rested his hands on the arms of his chair and refused to move his head. He would not let himself track the scrubber as it swung before him, back and forth, back and forth, a rumble of energy. "Conclusion; inaccurate."
         "Elaborate," Shockwave ordered, leaning on the back of Soundwave's chair with his other arm.
         Elaborate my sine function, Soundwave thought. "Informant; biased. Item; planted."
         "Fact; attempting to discredit you through planting an energy flow modulator amongst your private possessions would be ineffective," Shockwave said.
         "Elaborate," Soundwave said, leaning to one side to tap a few commands into his console.
         "Fact; your reputation is filth."
         Soundwave froze, one hand hovering above the keyboard, the other struggling to clench.
         Behind him, Shockwave tilted his head slightly as he leant more heavily on his arm. "Observation; your lack of response is characterised by suppressed anger. Hypothesis; you are cognisant of the truth of this fact but do not wish to acknowledge it. Conclusion; you are aware that your are renowned throughout the parts of the Decepticon Empire that have heard of you for your cowardice, grovelling, obedience and perversion."
         Soundwave wondered who'd shopped him. Ravage. Reminder to self; post Ravage to furthest colony at first possible opportunity.
         "Hypothesis," Shockwave continued, "your further silence constitutes assent. Conclusion; you are aware of your reputation as a pervert of remarkable scope."
         "Desiring Megatron; not perversion," Soundwave said.
         Shockwave wiggled the scrubber. "Fact; inability to acquire companionship is indicative of poor interpersonal relationship capacities. Fact; inability to forcibly acquire companionship is indicative of feebleness."
         "Inability to forcibly acquire companionship from Megatron; not weakness," Soundwave replied.
         "Inability to manipulate Megatron into desired relationship is indicative of poor political skills," Shockwave said, discarding the point with flat tones.
         Soundwave mentally listed the ways in which Shockwave was able to physically restrain him from leaving and wondered if he could run fast enough to escape. Assessment; unlikely.
         "I am eight-seven point five percent certain that you harbour a chronic unfulfilled desire for Megatron," Shockwave said, continued to verbally goad him.
         "Assess your factory's waste produce," Soundwave said, thoroughly fed up.
         "Suggestion; ignored," Shockwave said, unruffled. "Obscenity; irrelevant."
         "Conversation; irrelevant," Soundwave said, folding his arms over his chest-drive.
         "Assessment; incorrect," Shockwave said.
         Soundwave lifted his head a faction. Despite Shockwave's singularly thick armour, he was detecting a trace of emotion from the commander's core - a suggestion of nervousness? Of uncertainty? Of leaking radiation?
         "Fact; your perversion is not unique," Shockwave said, looking away.
         "Statement; true," Soundwave said. "Perspicacity; amazing."
         "Statement; irrelevant. Fact; your perversion is shared by 0.06% of Decepticons," Shockwave continued. "Fact; your perversion is shared by 100% of Decepticons in this room."
         Information; a liability, Soundwave thought. Shockwave; intelligent. "Propriety circuits; malfunctioning?" he asked. "Alternative: Shockwave; suicidal?"
         Shockwave dropped the scrubber in his lap. Soundwave flinched, his buttons pressing themselves down in a cringe. The scrubber almost burned with Megatron's energy signature. It felt hot on his thighs, powerful and alive and...
         ...recently used.
         Soundwave wanted to scream.
         "Fact; any mechanism desperate enough to use an energy flow modulator is desperate for company. Fact; energy flow modulators can be cross-linked in order to be used between two mechanisms," Shockwave said, no more inflected than if he were discussing the state of repair on a highway. "Fact; I will be in my quarters at three breems after seven joors."
         Soundwave touched the scrubber in his lap. It felt like Megatron.
         "Fact; you are desperate enough to be there early," Shockwave said, and left.
         Fact, thought Soundwave, malfunctioning glitchbag is right.

080207 - Quiet part 9

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:13:51 GMT

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?

Site poll

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:30:35 GMT

View Poll: Koipoll 2008

080123 - It's Not Funny

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:04:32 GMT

5/1/08 - 970 words on It's Not Funny
6/1/08 - 795 words on It's Not Funny
7/1/08 - Ill
8/1/08 - Ill
9/1/08 - 806 words on It's Not Funny
10/1/08 - Ill
11/1/08 - Ill
12/1/08 - 660 words on Ark Visit
13/1/08 - Day Off
14/1/08 - Ill
15/1/08 - Ill
16/1/08 - 1487 words on untitled TF ficbit
17/1/08 - 969 words on It's Not Funny
18/1/08 - 612 words on Omicron Rising
19/1/08 - 811 words on Blood & Diesel
20/1/08 - Day Off
21/1/08 - 627 words on The Other God of Charr
22/1/08 - Ill

23/1/08 - New Fic
It's Not Funny [TF:G1, season 2, slash-ish]
A domestic abuse charity ask Jazz to help them reach out to Starscream.