"Fallen Comrades"

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

(( OOC: Do we have anyone playing Stripes? I don't think so but I can't remember... *goes sifting through the auditions* ...No... I don't think so. Xzuk did but if I remember correctly, he later declined. So, unless there are any other volunteers, I'll cover for Tigs for now. ))

After snickering at succeeding in slowing down the lousy Maximals, surely securing the helpless protoform for themselves, Waspinator flew on with Terrorsaur toward the pod and Venatrix. With their opponent out of the way, they should be able to convert the protoform to a Predacon without any distractions. Not for a while anyway. But that was assuming it wasn't seriously damaged or destroyed in its impact on the snowy terrain. Reverting to beast mode, the giant wasp flew on quickly.

-----

Inside one of the Axalon's repair chambers appeared dark and quiet, but it was quite busy inside the Maximal Commander's mind. In a deep slumber while repairs proceeded, scattered ideas, alien voices, and recent past events that occured since they had landed on the planet randomly ruffled Primal's thoughts. Like a dream, nothing made sense. In one moment, he was surrounded by his crew, some familiar and some not, in a familiar place. The next, it was as if time was falling, collapsing, with a whirl wind of voices he could only recognize by his abduction with the golden alien probe.

Darkness felt like a heavy weight on his shoulders and deep, menacing laughter similar to that of Megatron's echoed from every direction that he could not see. A short burst of fear and panic washed over Optimus inside his disorganized dream... it was a dream, wasn't it?... until hope grabbed him and held him up straight. Not all will be lost. All what? Or who? Was that spontaneous thought supposed to comfort him? The strange alien voices that had been pushed to the background were replaced by his crew's warm vocals and friendly faces. Well, for those who could appear friendlier than others. Some were unreadable or indistinguishable, like Saber-Fang's, as if she was attached to something; something that constantly pre-occupied her mind. ...But that had to have been developed on Primal's own suspicions in reality. Right? Nonetheless, they were the members who depended on his leadership, his guidance, his optimism. What have we gotten ourselves into? So far from home. Cybertron. Yet in this realm, he could be there in the beat of his spark. He had to get them home. All of them, including Dinobot. They weren't supposed to be here, wherever or whenever here was. Something about this planet troubled his spark, and it wasn't Megatron alone...

[Lady_Jet2]

Rattrap glared into nothing and grumbled. "yeah well slag off ya stinkin' saurian!" he cried to his dead comm link. "C'mon we gotta find a way over dis canyon." he said looking to the others and transforming back into beast mode. he didn't need his energon shields being strained by the time they got to the pod. "any ideas Rhinox?"

[Blazemane]

Dinobot wasn't sure how to react to Saber Fang's comment- it was a compliment he hadn't expected to receive.

This brought him back to the moment he had challenged Optimus for the role of leader. It was a job the Maximal had gradually proven himself worthier of. The crew he had- each member was so riddled with weak sentiment, and it took someone with a degree of sympathy for that fact to know how to get them to do anything competently. Dinobot, on the other hand, would long ago have made a strategic attack on Megatron's forces and either proven successful or gotten everyone killed.

And it was probably the latter of the two possibilities that would have occurred. The Maximals weren't ineffective warriors, per se, but they seemed so much better at the reactionary. Megatron was going to acquire a massive amount of energon, so they had to meet him on the field and stop him. Megatron was going to take control of an alien probe, so they had to defend it. Terrorsaur found an unstable energon source, so they had to detonate it. The one time they tried to defeat the Predacons once and for all, they tried with a bomb, and not a battle. And it had taken Dinobot's prodding to get them to do even that in a timely fashion.

In short, the Maximals did singular missions well, but seemed unwilling to embrace full scale assault. And in the end, it would have driven Dinobot insane to try to lead them.

Bringing his processor back to the problem at hand, Dinobot brought his claw to his snout. How could they possibly activate the stasis pod without physically reaching it? Was there instead a way to speed the ground forces up? To slow the Predacons down? Finally an idea struck him.

"Computer, access and activate Optimus Primal's core consciousness."

"Acknowledged," the computer responded back. The CR chamber immediately began emanating a blue light. It was time call on another ability which suited Primal for leadership- creative thinking.

A 3d schematic showed up above the table, showing Primal's form as it sought to activate his core consciousness. Dinobot turned again to Saber.

"I think it will help to hear what he has to say, but do you have any ideas?"

"Core consciousness, activated." The computer announced behind him. He turned around to face the schematics.

"On screen."

[NaitoKage]

Rhinox looked towards Rattrap as he spoke to him. His head turned as he looked over the terrain, his optics squinting noticing what looked like a tree that had fallen inside of the canyon. He raised an optic ridge as they zoomed into the distance, displaying the end of the tree seemed to be missing it's roots as if someone intentionally cut the tree.. But why? He then looked towards the woods Maybe just one..Follow me. Beast mode! he then said transforming to his rhino mode, he trudged along the side of the Canyon closer to the trees, looking for a fairly large one.

[Night-Hunter]

Saber knew that her comment had taken Dinobot by surprise. Dinobot may have been a Predacon once and challenged Optimus for Leadership of the Maximals but aside from that he had what it took to be a great and possibly even legendary leader.

"Computer, access and activate Optimus Primal's core consciousness."

Saber narrowed her green eyes what was Dinobot planning?

"Acknowledged,"

The CR chamber immediately began emanating a blue light, catching Saber's attention.

"I think it will help to hear what he has to say, but do you have any ideas?"

Saber was taken aback by Dinobots comment, but she replied none the less.

"Maybe, but lets see what Optimus has to say first." She replied calmly then turned her attention toward the computer.

"Core consciousness, activated."

"On screen."

Saber walked up to Dinobot, even in beast mode the raptor was still taller then she was.

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

"Core consciousness, activated."

"On screen."

Suddenly, everything that been running through Primal's mind, deep, deep down in his mind beyond reality, came to an abrupt halt. While he remained dorment in the CR, someone was apparently seeking his help or an answer or something of significant importance in order to awaken his core consciousness via the main console on the bridge. It was an odd feeling, hearing and seeing beyond his body, but no more strange than what had happened when he temporarily lost his body inside the alien probe.

The gorilla's head, dowsed in blue from the light illuminating in the repair chamber, appeared before Dinobot, "hovering" above the console. Optimus had a feeling there was trouble with at least one of the pods they were chasing, hence the raptor's call. He could "see" Dinobot there with Saber-Fang beside him. All else was quiet with the base.

The Maximal commander spoke in a very mellow, calm voice. "Don't tell me," he said. "Let me guess. Problems already?"

[Blazemane]

It didn't take Dinobot long to adjust to the strange display in front of him. It wasn't normal to talk to Optimus this way, but it really wasn't that weird.

"Indeed," Dinobot replied. "The Northern group has been forcibly delayed. The Predacons will reach the pod first. Have you any thoughts?"

[Night-Hunter]

"Don't tell me," "Let me guess. Problems already?"

Wow, he is way to mellow. Saber thought.

"Indeed," "The Northern group has been forcibly delayed. The Predacons will reach the pod first. Have you any thoughts?"

An idea popped into Saber's head that might just work. "I believe we need to get some sort of signal sent to the pod."

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

(( OOC: N-H, your post kind of defeats the purpose of disturbing OP's rest. You had Saber answer Dinobot in your earlier post that she might have an idea but wanted to wait to hear what OP's might be. He didn't even get as far as brainstorming because he didn't know the situation and then she suggests her idea first anyway. If Saber had an idea earlier, then she should've discussed it with Dinobot before he called upon OP's "creativity," (that Blazemane so graciously credited the leader for) because I always saw Dinobot accessing his core consciousness as a final resort due to being out of ideas. ...So I guess I'll see what I can come up with. ))

"Indeed," "The Northern group has been forcibly delayed. The Predacons will reach the pod first. Have you any thoughts?"

Unfortunate news; certainly not what Optimus wanted to hear but now it was time to figure out what they could do to prevent the Predacons from getting their hands on their helpless comrade until the Maximal ground unit arrived. The first thought that came to mind was establishing communication with the stasis pod. However, with the distance of the location of the pod and the energon fields, communication links would probably suffer too much interference and be rendered useless. Just before he was about to announce another idea, Saber-Fang broke in with her own.

"I believe we need to get some sort of signal sent to the pod."

Primal's thoughts exactly. His eyes shifted from Saber back to Dinobot. "Yes," the leader agreed in his soft voice. Since it wasn't exactly him speaking physically from his body, his tone could be expected to be more calm than usual. After all, it was "the voice inside his head." "How about... laser pulse?" he inquired.

[Night-Hunter]

((OOC: Sorry i got a little excited.))

[Blazemane]

Dinobot liked the idea of communicating with pod remotely, but the latest suggestion just didn't make sense.

"Impossible," he concluded. "We would need line-of-sight transmission."

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

(( OOC: Ah, I see, N-H. Let's try to keep it under control. ))

"Impossible," "We would need line-of-sight transmission."

Unless... "Isn't there anything we could bounce it off of?" suggested Optimus. "A mountain? Clouds? Anything?" If they could send any kind of information to the pod and assist in its proper functioning and programming before the Predacons reached it, the beam would be the most effecient way and couldn't be interfered with by the Preds.

Fortunately, Saber-Fang was there to assist Dinobot. They would need to quickly set up a dish for the laser beam outside. And they couldn't rule out a possible Predacon attack. Their enemy could have very well split up into several teams just like the Maximals had.

[Night-Hunter]

"Impossible," "We would need line-of-sight transmission."

"Isn't there anything we could bounce it of off?" "A mountain? Clouds? Anything?"

For this Saber drew a blank for a few seconds, she then opened her mouth to say some thing but stopped herself.

"No, that's... just stupid." She muttered.

[Blazemane]

Bounce a line-of-sight signal? Well that... was indeed creative.

"Perhaps there is," Dinobot conceded. Then he thought he heard Saber mutter something, and he turned to face her for a moment with a raised eye-lid. But she didn't seem to acknowledge her own statement, so he turned back to Optimus.

"Saber and I will look into possible reflectors and report back shortly."

[Lady_Jet2]

Rattrap followed Rhinox and cheetor to the few sparce trees in the area and looked around. "Well...guess we just gotta find one that will make a bridge." looking around and then toward the gap, estimating it's width and frowning. "If there's a tree that's about 90 feet..." he muttered and looked over toward the sparse forest. As much as he didn't like destroying part of an environment to get someplace he knew that this was more important that a tree. besides they could re-grow.