[New RPG] World at War: Panopticon

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Springer85
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Post by Springer85 »

Kelex Space Station

Wheeljack looked around as he moved his way through the space station while following Skyblast. "Quite a mess this place is. I'll feel right at home. I never know where I put what either. Usually at the times when I need it the most," he joked.

As they passed the window, Wheeljack looked through it. Wheeljack remained silent for a moment. Never in his wildest imagination would he have thought to see an ancient Transformers such as him. "Wow," he said, being a bit lost for words. "Looks like he had it a bot rough. I hope I can help. Is he still functioning?"
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Post by Aero Blade »

Soundwave Facility

Raiku spared Volks a look that didn't quite resemble a scowl. "You're scary, you know that? And not in the way you're intending," his tone suggesting less 'scary' and more 'weird'.

He turned his attention to Red Alert, giving a frown. "There's a lot more energy up here than I'm used to having to filter, it's very hard to see anything," he admitted.

Hound meanwhile would give a bit of a shrug. "Do what you can." The scout began to move forward, staying alert as he would crossing a minefield in enemy territory, expecting anything to jump out at him as he began to proceed down the hall ahead of the others.
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Post by Warcry »

Soundwave Facility

"That may be deliberate," Red Alert told Raiku with a suspicious tone in his voice. "Soundwave knows you. He may have put in additional power conduits in the facility just to mess with your abilities. We should keep a look out for anything that looks like new additions, or places where more power is flowing than it should. In this case a coverup could reveal almost as much as what it's hiding."

He followed behind Hound, happy that the scout was around to lead the way safely in situations like this.
_____________________________

Kelex Space Station

Skyblast nodded. "He's as functional as you'd expect after spending the last three months being shot up by Decepticons," he told Wheeljack. "The external damage is something that his self-repair drones could take care of, except...well, they don't seem to be working. Power distribution systems and main engines are also in a sorry state of disrepair too, which is to be expected when the guy hasn't moved from his parking orbit in a thousand years. So those are what he needs help with most. Of course..." Skyblast gestured to the station around them. "If you think this place is a mess you're really going to love it in there. I swear some of his systems are built from clockwork."
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Post by Springer85 »

Kelex Space Station

"Poor guy..." Wheeljack said as Skyblast informed him that the Omega Sentinel had been figting off Decepticons for quite a while.

"Alright, so the repair drones need repairing, the engines need to be looked at and the power systems needs to be checked, right? Wheeljack cracks his digits. "Well, looks like we got our work cut out for us. Not going to be easy though."

Wheeljack motions to Highbrow. "Highbrow, can you start working on the drones? I'll see what I can do on the power distribution." Wheeljack looked at Skyblast. "Where do I enter?"
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((ooc: yay for work, and being the only person to fill a shift, no matter what time it is. And being sick hasn't helped either, but hopefully I'm back on track. Let me know if I need to make any adjustments here Wacry.))


Soundwave Facility

It was slow going traversing the corridors within Soundwave, especially when every move you made needed to be approved by the 'committee'. Hound would stop periodically to compare the state of the area to the map he had, Raiku would catch a fluctuation in the energy matrix that would need to be monitored briefly, Red Alert would hear or smell something that wasn't quite right, and every time any of it happened they had to compare notes to if things were alright to proceed. It was all very time consuming. Hound couldn't help but wonder if this was what it was like to try to accomplish anything as a politician, though the other senators weren't liable to kill you.

"When we get planet-side again, I think I'm gonna have a nice long chat with Prowl about whichever idiot was brazen enough to design this mess..." Hound complained, mostly to himself.
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Post by Warcry »

(OOC: So sorry guys, site stuff killed me. Back now!)

Facility

"I doubt anyone down on Cybertron designed this," Red Alert told Hound. "Soundwave probably issued fraudulent work orders. Used our own staff to modify the place into a death trap maze." He growled. "Just one more crime he needs to pay for."

He looked back down the corridor toward where they'd come.

"We've walked from one end to the other and not seen a single useful hint about where to go," he said at last. "As much as I hate to say it, I think we might need to just pick one pathway at random and start going."
_____________________________

Kelex Space Station

"Yeah," Skyblast agreed with Wheeljack. "He's so old though, my people couldn't even tell which of the damage was caused by the Decepticons and which of it might have just been from thousands of years of unaddressed wear and tear."

Skyblast walked over to the nearby control panel and typed in a command sequence, then pressed his palm over a scanning pad. The panel then displayed a "waiting..." message.

"I've set up access for you," he said. "Just run your hand across the scanner so it can record your circuit signature. Then you'll be able to come and go through the airlock at your leisure."
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Post by Aero Blade »

Soundwave Facility

"I can see now why Prowl had been so stressed out about this thing. I only wish we'd been able to do something about it before it got blown up into this whole situation," Hound answered to Red Alert.

While the others were talking, Raiku was taking another long look around, trying to find something, anything, that might be helpful. Raiku had done enough work on computer systems hardware to know something like Soundwave had to have a lot of power running to him, but the blasted thing had rigged all the power to flow through so many conduits wrapping back and forth, it formed a maze of power conduits that blocked his vision. But Soundwave couldn't disguise what direction the power was flowing, and as long as they'd been wandering, Raiku was starting to tune into his power frequency. It was still a maze of power flow twisting in all directions, but there was one spot where most of the power seemed to converge to. Unless Soundwave wanted to reduce his own power input to make something else look more important, that had to be it...

"This way. I think..." Raiku spoke, adding the last part with no small amount of concern. There was still no way of knowing for sure where they were headed, or what they were walking in to.
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Post by Warcry »

Soundwave Facility

"The problem is, Prowl was perfectly happy to let this happen as long as he thought Soundwave was on his side," Red Alert told Hound. "Anyone with an ounce of common sense could have told him it was a bad idea from the get-go."

The detective frowned in the direction that Raiku had indicated. He didn't see anything that indicated this was the right way to go...but then he didn't see anything that indicated it wasn't, either. His frown deepened as he fought to ignore the feeling of uselessness that washed over him.

He followed Raiku into the indicated corridor, keeping a lookout for threats in whatever shape they might come.

For whatever good that'll do...
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Post by Aero Blade »

Soundwave Facility

For a while, travelling their new corridor, the group would find things quiet - meeting no traps or enemies. Despite the way seeming all-clear, Raiku would find his pace slowed, nerves wracked at the lack of opposition. Were they going the wrong way, and thus no need to attack them? Maybe the traps from before were attempts to herd them, and they stopped now that they were on the 'right' track?

Raiku would eventually stop moving all together, distracted by these thoughts until he found Hound and Red Alert beside him. Raiku gave a brief sigh before pushing his feet to start moving again, proceeding again down the foreboding corridor.
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Post by Warcry »

Soundwave Facility

As the group moved around the corridor, they would notice the lights start to grow progressively dimmer. Red Alert could have sworn he saw something moving through the shadows, tailing them as they followed the path that they had obviously been funnelled onto. He tensed, expecting the attack, but it didn't come and that only increased his tension.

As they advanced, the light gave out almost entirely, but the changing tenor of the room's echoes made it clear to them that they'd moved from the cramped corridor into a larger, much more open room. Red Alert tried to assemble a mental image of it for later use, but his concentration was interrupted by a deeply-flanged voice erupting from countless small speakers.

"You shouldn't have come here," Soundwave told them.
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Post by Aero Blade »

Soundwave Facility

Hound had been scanning the room as they moved into it (to help him with not being able to see, but also to double-check where they were on Prowl's map) when he would lose his focus upon hearing the booming voice, startling him from his activity.

Raiku had been startled by the voice as well, but it was quickly replaced with another emotion, anger. He recognized the voice all too well, from the drones that had been attacking him not long ago. Raiku's expression twisted up into a snarl, speaking in a low growl. "Soundwave..."
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Post by Warcry »

Soundwave Facility

"Yes," Soundwave admitted. "Me. You should not have come, Autobots. Your lives are now forfeit."

Although the Decepticon didn't seem to be in the room with them, it seemed like his focus narrowed then to just Raiku.

Red Alert tuned out his ranting and concentrated on the room, slowly walking into it, letting the echoes of his footfalls tell him the room's dimensions at the same time as his keen sense of smell helped to clarify what it's contents were.

Based on what he smelled, he didn't think they'd be happy when Soundwave turned on the lights.

"I gave you a chance," Soundwave continued "You could have simply kept your nose out of my business. But you kept looking. Kept digging. Kept following my trail. If you'd just left well enough alone, you could have lived out the rest of your life happily ignorant. But you chose this, Raiku."

The lights turned on.

The room was full of bodies. Some of bore military markings -- the remains of Prowl's repair team, no doubt. Others were clearly civilian, with markings indicating they were tradesmechs, technicians and maintenance engineers. The soldiers had been killed in a wide variety of ways, probably by assorted death traps, but the civilians...they'd been torn apart, ripped to pieces by claw and fang. And judging by the sheer number of tool marks on the bodies, it hadn't been quick.

Poor bastards, Red Alert though, feeling a pang of sympathy even though he didn't know any of the ones who'd died.

He suspected, however, that Raiku had.

"You chose this," Soundwave said again, as if to drive it home.
_________________________________

Kelex Space Station

The engineers had set up shop inside Omega Supreme several hours ago, and already the ancient mobile war fortress had started to look a lot better...from the outside, anyway. Drones crawled across the hull, replacing blast-damaged and age-worn plating with new, uniform dull grey ablative armour. The huge rocket engine on one end of the Sentinel was being refurbished, as was the primary cannon at the nose.

But the signs of battle were growing closer, with explosions now visible to Skyblast from the station's control room even without any magnification. The Omnicon frowned, hoping that the job would be done before the Decepticons arrived to kill them all.
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Post by Aero Blade »

Soundwave Facility

Hound was appalled, even angered, at the sight around him. How did Soundwave get so many bodies up here without anyone noticing? But then again with all of his access, control of the drones, he could easily move such numbers without anyone noticing, or even eliminating witnesses and adding them to this mess... Hound looked briefly over at Red Alert to guage his reaction, but was quickly distracted instead by Raiku.

The mechanic had dropped to his knees, mouth hanging open slightly (his color probably would have drained out of his face were he capable of it). Almost every body, every mangled corpse laid out around them, Raiku knew. Some of them acquaintances, others neighbors, many of them coworkers, and his friends... every bot that he knew personally, closely, was on top of the piles, placed as though deliberately arranged. Everyone, ever single being that it seemed like Raiku had known from his life, were now sparkless shells laid out before him. The risk to the people around him - it was what Raiku had feared the most when all this had started - and the worst of what he had feared was now manifest before him.

Raiku's head sank to looking at the floor, all of his senses going numb as his mind swam with all the details. Not even Hound yelling his name and shaking his shoulder could break through the haze.
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Post by Warcry »

Soundwave Facility

Raiku's reactions confirmed Red Alert's suspicions, and also inconveniently left the security officer basically alone to deal with whatever else Soundwave had to throw at them -- Roadbuster had wandered off to find a fight, Volks had stayed behind trying to hack a computer terminal, Raiku was understandably catatonic and Hound was going to be occupied tending to him for the foreseeable future.

Which, clearly, had been the Decepticon's plan all along. Divide and conquer. And he'd divided them, alright.

I should have stayed out of this. I bet Nightbeat isn't having this kind of problems...

"All of these people are dead because of you," Soundwave was saying. "They died because you wouldn't stop interfering in the affairs of your betters. They--"

"Soundwave, let me be the first to say...shut the hell up!"

Before the Decepticon had a chance to respond, Red Alert drew both of his pistols and fired off nine rounds, each one finding its mark and destroying one of the hidden speakers that dotted the room. But even with their enemy thus silenced, Red couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched.

He turned to the other two Autobots and said, "We need to get moving. We're not alone here."
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Post by Aero Blade »

Soundwave Facility

It would be the sound of Red Alert's weapon that pulled Raiku out of his haze, looking up in alarm. Whether it was a reflex to the sound of a weapon due to Soundwave's hunting him before, or simply the volume of the noise, was anyone's guess.

With Raiku conscious again, Hound would haul him back to his feet, getting his own gun ready and scowling as he looked around the room again for any further traps aside from the psychological one in this room.

"We gotta be close," Hound would say aloud, making a motion to point towards the doorway to the next room with his weapon.
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Post by Heinrad »

Soundwave Facility:


'This', thought Roadbuster, 'is boring.'

He'd blown holes through walls.

He'd microwaved computer banks.

He'd smashed delicate circuitry.

And for all that effort, he hadn't gotten much attention. A few traps had gone off, sure. Heck, at one point he'd blown through an outer wall, but emergency force fields had popped up.

Finally he'd just started smashing consoles at random as he wandered through the station. So much for distracting Soundwave.

Then he wandered through yet another set of doors and stumbled across the rest of the group.

And the bodies.

His emerald green optic band widened in surprise, and he looked over at Red. "Well, that answers one question........."
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Post by Warcry »

Soundwave Facility

Red Alert spun around as Roadbuster joined them, almost shooting the other Autobot before recognition kicked in. Amidst the sound of his own gunfire, he hadn't heard his approach.

He took a second to calm himself, then said, "What question? And have you seen Volks at all?"

He glanced at Hound, nodded and said, "I agree. He wouldn't go to all this trouble if we had wandered into some unimportant corner of the station. The question is, can Raiku help us along the rest of the way?"
_________________________________

Kelex Space Station

Skyblast had just settled back in to his routine in the command centre when Offshoot came up to him, frowning.

"What is it?"

"Something on the scopes, sir." The other Omnicon brought up an image on Skyblast's display. "A ship incoming. An old Z8-class patrol vessel flying Decepticon colours."

Fear started to claw at the Omnicon's guts. The ship was obsolete, to be sure, but it carried a heavy weapons load and could transport a sizeable contingent of troops. The repair station was barely armed, and their security forces were more customs inspectors than soldiers.

"Dammit. Are you sure they're coming here?"

"As sure as can be. Their vector and speed suggest they're planning to match orbits with us."

Skyblast let out a curse, then cast a glance up at the commander's office. "Okay. Let her know what's going on. I'll put in a distress call to our sector hub."

And hope that they have anything left to help us with...
_________________________________

Orbital Command Hub, Sector K

Skydive nervously approached his commander's status board and meekly cleared his throat. "Sir? We've got a distress call coming in from one of the sectors in our station."

Silverbolt didn't even look up from his board. "Tell them they're on their own," he said. "All of our resources are already in the field."

"I, uh..." Skydive tried not to visually quail. "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't do that. It's Kelex. It was on the list of top-priority facilities that the courier from the surface brought us."

That got Silverbolt to look up. "I understand that, but we still can't help them. Half of our flyers are dead and the rest are engaged defending a platform with over fifty thousand people living on it."

"But sir, our orders..."

Silverbolt sighed. "Skydive, the grand total of field-rated flyers left at this base are you, three other cadets and myself. It would be irresponsible of me to take you into a battle where we were so badly overmatched. If there was something we could do..." He shook his head. "But there's not."

"We could move the station." Skydive passed a tablet to the other Autobot. "I did some calculations. We're not far off from their orbit as-is, astronomically speaking. Using our steering thrusters, we could accelerate into a higher orbit and arrive at Kelex not long after the Decepticons do. Our defensive batteries could make a big difference in the fight."

Silverbolt frowned. "Moving off-station would hamper our ability to coordinate forces in this sector," he said, "though I suppose that wouldn't matter much now. Okay, do it. And Skydive?"

The younger Autobot met his optics for the first time.

"Good thinking."
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"This is Prowl – has your mission been successful?"
___________________________________________

Soundwave Facility

Red Alert replied to Prowl's call curtly. "Not exactly. Roadbuster has damaged some equipment and Volks is attacking the software side of the problem, but Soundwave himself is still at large."
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Post by Aero Blade »

Soundwave Facility

Hound gave a slight frown at Red Alert's question, but before he could say anything further, Raiku had pulled away from him, starting to move towards the exit.

Raiku said nothing, and his mood was both sullen and sterile. He didn't even really seem aware of the others around him, not interacting with them. To some degree he was still disassociated with the rest of the world around him, the shock of what had just happened still weighing on him....but somewhere in his mind he knew he needed to keep going. Even though every other fiber in his body just wanted to lie down and die, to join the others in passing, he knew he couldn't do it here. He couldn't give Soundwave the satisfaction, the complete victory. Rejoining his friends in the allspark would have to wait.
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Post by Warcry »

Soundwave Facility

"Okay then." Red Alert watched Raiku get up and head for the door, an unreadable expression on his face. Sidling up to Hound, he whispered, "One of us needs to make sure he doesn't get himself killed."

As the group moved into the next room, it was clear they'd found their goal. The chamber was huge, nearly a mile square, packed to the gills with redundant racks of servers, backup hard drives, communications antennae and hundreds of miles of optical cable.

"We're being watched," Red told the others more loudly. "Keep sharp."
_________________________________

Kelex Space Station

Offshoot knocked on Arcee's office door. "Commander, you might want to come see this."
_________________________________

Skyblast watched the approaching Decepticon warship, an ever-deepening frown on his face. On the viewer, he could see smaller ships breaking off of the larger vessel like cyber-fleas deserting a dying turbofox. The small starfighters dove in at the station, moving too quickly for their guns to track.

"I don't know how much progress you've made," he said over the comm to the engineering team, "but you'd better get that old bucket ready to move soon or it never will!"

At the same time he sounded the evacuation protocol, telling the civilian vessels who were docked with the station to take off now and get out of what would soon be a free-fire zone.

On the plus side, one of the nearby military stations seemed to be drifting in their direction, and the odds would hopefully even out some once they arrived.
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