Transformers: Alone and Unafraid

[Cynical Cat]

"Get the biologicals out of here!" Deathstrike ordered. Chains broke under his hands and manacles were forced open. "Immediately!"

Farshot's transmission reached him. "Get data retrieval operatives working on the computers and damage control on the ship's main systems. Dispatch fleet fast strike and rapid reaction elements to relieve the planet. Dispatch rescue parties to damaged ships to save as many slaves as possible."

[rhoenix]

Farshot's transmission reached him. "Get data retrieval operatives working on the computers and damage control on the ship's main systems. Dispatch fleet fast strike and rapid reaction elements to relieve the planet. Dispatch rescue parties to damaged ships to save as many slaves as possible."

"Acknowledged, Commander," Farshot replied.

A moment later, he relayed the message to the fleet. "Command, I have orders from Commander Deathstrike. He orders data retrieval operatives for the computer systems, damage control teams for the ship's main systems, and fast strike and rapid reaction elements to relieve the planet's defenders. He further orders rescue parties to all damaged ships to save as many former slaves as they can."

After the communique, he ran a diagnostic on his own systems, and internally winced - he'd definitely be spending time in repairs once this was over. Nonetheless, he was still quite ready for combat, should his sensors report any suspicious activities.

[LadyTevar]

Deathstrike's shout made Shimmer react instantly. "You heard him, Grindstone," she said, stepping inside the engine room to help ferry biologicals outside.

[Lys]

"Commander Blastcap, this is Commodore Liaks. Deathstrike is off the comms right now, we have contact with his unit, he's engaged in liberation actions right now. Do you have control of point defense? If you do I'll send over the crackers and anaylists. Over."

"Understood Commodore, give me a moment," Blastcap replied over the comms. She then quickly queried all her units to see how much control they had over the ship, asked her platoon's technicians on the status of the point-defence grid, and then checked to see if her Lieutenant had managed to find any surviving bridge officers to persuade to surrender the rest of the ship.

[General Havoc]

Cavalier barely heard Deathstrike, and tabled what he had said for later processing, for he was simply busy. He sheathed his sword, retracted his shield, and set about sundering chains and physically lifting organics who couldn't walk. He did these things in silence, having apparently forgotten about all the other Autobots in the room, intent on simply doing what he could at this juncture, before the uncharacteristic period of insanity that had led Deathstrike to order the priority salvation of organics came to an end.

He was certain that considering the reasons for this risked ending the universe.

[Dark Silver]

Grindstone had heard the order - just as he saw the biologicals streaming out of the burning hell that his sensors told him Engineering had become. Burning hell for organics anyway.

"I heard," Grindstone told Shimmer, his optics keyed each of the organics over, then the hall. Feral was still out there - stalking them, Grindstone was almost sure of it. Even if Feral wasn't, the rest of the traitors were about. Grindstone wouldn't put it past them to do something - remotely break the seals in the engine core, flooding the engine room and corridor with superheated plasma and ionizing radiation which could destroy even the most heavily armored Cybertronian in their number.

After all, it was something he would do if he had all but lost the ship.

Still, Grindstone obeyed the order, moving into the Engine Room and going to task, working to free the enslaved and trapped, ushering them out of the engine bay and into the relative safety of the hallway...

[frigidmagi]

Front Command

The enlarged fleet flew into the system all lights running. Due to the shock of running face first into a League Fleet so far from home. Many of the ships were scarred from the fight, being under emergency repairs to move them to the docks on the ring. The GDE escorts had fled, most of the ships raiding the colony world had been destroyed. It was all in all the cheapest victory the Free World's Alliance had seen in some time. The mood was... Happy.

"This is System Commander Father Dai, welcome back League Fleet, docking instructions following."

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike monitored the comm flows, but did not take part. The fleet's captains and commanders could handle the routine of docking and return. Those who were not already expert could use the practice. He felt no need to micromanage the minutiae. There were other things on his mind.

Not strategy or tactics or logistics or engineering. Those issues had consumed large amounts of processor time and the best solutions, given the available data, had already be calculated and implemented with alternative plans devised and waiting in memory storage should the situation change and alternative strategies prove more effective. No, he was spending his time on other matters.

He considered the piece of steel before him, marked with angular cuts from a laser cutter. The pattern, he decided, was satisfactory. In his cerebral circuits he combined all the plates together and considered the composite image. Satisfactory, he decided. Next would come the enamels, to give the mosaic colour and life. He consulted inventory databases and began choosing colours.

[LadyTevar]

Shimmer, had she been biological, would have been pacing, waiting for the moment they finished docking so she could start digging into the wealth of intel data the Fleet had captured. While they had no captured a Decepticon, some of the prisoners were of sufficient rank to interrogate. The rest were simple slaves, many so brainwashed they would never be able to function in Society again. Shimmer would have to discuss with the FreeWorlds what to do with them.

Her processors raced with all that had to be done. The rescued FreeWorld captives would all need to be debriefed, and unfortunately checked for any signs they had been turned or replaced with spies. Considering the 'Cons had expected to blow yet another FreeWorlder fleet out of the sky when they attack, it was unlikely any of the slaves were counter-intelligence ...
BUT it never hurt to be thorough. Shimmer was going to watch the FreeWorld Intel as they debriefed their own people, but she was going to ask DeathStrike to join her when they started interrogating the Mekhans and other crew from the GDE.

Then there was the AI on the GDE ships. Each intact computer AI they'd captured would have to be hacked, cracked, and all the intel pulled out of them to be sorted, analyzed, compiled and shaken into usable data so the FreeWorlds and the Fleet could plan how to prepare for future raids. The ships themselves would be stripped out and reformatted for FreeWorld use, the technology inside reverse-engineered to help improve the FW's own tech base. While Deathstrike was not giving out too much Cybertronian tech, what the FreeWorld could reverse-engineer from the 'Cons was free tech.

But the intel inside, that was what had Shimmer grinning in anticipation. Communication channel codes to decrypt, starmaps with bases and supply dumps to backtrack, and fleet numbers to break down. Her processors revved just thinking about the cycles ahead, digging into the data and pulling the intel out. Let Grindstone and Cavalier brag on battles, this was Shimmer's kind of fight.

[rhoenix]

It had been a long, exhausting day - and Farshot was finally flying back into the hangar. Damage, both superficial and not, decorated his sleek assault craft form as he landed gently on the floor of the hangar, his maneuvering jets lessening their power, and finally going out.

Right after the battle, Farshot had flown to the forces around the planet, and assisted craft and personnel in relief and humanitarian efforts. His spaceframe had sustained damage, a few of his internal sensors had taken damage as well - but his engines were still just as powerful, able to help many smaller craft achieve orbit, or land softly on the surface, assisted by his powerful maneuvering jets. He had rescued damaged craft (and all too often the crew aboard them), assisted in towing craft into a stable orbit for later collection, and did his utmost to rescue the damaged, stranded, and wounded on the planet.

Once the planet had more or less been stabilized, and his assistance was no longer needed, Farshot made for the stations surrounding the solar system's gas giant, and began to assist with EVA-required repairs - mostly because there was no way he could possibly fit on the inside.

Then, once all the repairs that required someone to be outside the station were done, and everything else seemed to be stabilizing, only then did Farshot return to the hangar.

Once his maneuvering jets had gently allowed him to land on the fleet hangar bay of the station, he subsequently transformed into his robot form, and performed a full diagnostic on himself. As the results came back from each subsystem, he sighed internally. He would most certainly be earning the ire of the repair 'bots of the medbay once he had a chance to visit. Which, he noted after checking his recent comm logs, he had time to do now.

Making his way with slow strides to the medical bay (as his right leg... wasn't quite working right), he then lay on one of the examination tables as directed, and mentally reviewed his logs of the conflict as repairs began on his form. Farshot did his best not listen to the grumbling of the 'bot in charge of repairs, but the 'bot made it difficult, with particularly pointed comments.

"And how, exactly, did you manage to get your thruster manifold damaged on every part but the thruster itself? Which you nearly shook apart from all the combat maneuvers, I might add. By the Allspark, no wonder you walked in with a limp," grumbled the 'bot, as he began replacing armored plating for Farshot's entire leg.

"I... wasn't quite able to dodge a missile swarm entirely," Farshot said with a sigh.

The bot glared at him for a moment. "A missile swarm? What in the name of the Allspark were you doing?"

At this, Farshot smirked slightly. "I was assaulting the capital ships. I think a few of them might have taken offense."

The medbay bot only grumbled louder at this. "Well, if you were tangling with capital ships and managed to walk in, limp or not, I still am obliged to reprimand you for not ducking."

Farshot dimmed his optics for a moment, the cybertronian equivalent of an eyeroll for organics. "I managed to fire a shell to detonate most of them, but didn't quite get all of them. Two of them hit - because... I miscalculated."

"Or maybe you could look into getting proper countermeasures for missiles. Just a thought from a simple medic," the Cybertronian doctor said dryly.

"Yeah, you might just have a point," Farshot said with a sigh, wincing as the doctor began replacing damaged parts from his leg.

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike found suitable colours and placed the order. Art would have to wait. The Decepticon warrior left his cabin and stalked toward the airlock. He had a campaign to discuss.

[LadyTevar]

There were so few Cybertronians, it was easy to hear them coming by their footsteps. Shimmer rose and stepped out into the hallway to see if she was correct.

"Deathstrike." She fell in step behind him as he walked to the airlock. "Orders as yet, Commander?"

[frigidmagi]

It had been weeks, peaceful, boring weeks. The captured Decepticon ships were in the process of being repaired. A good number of them were complete and just about finished with the long teeth grinding (for those who had teeth) security clean up. In many ships, the Limited Intelligences had just been yanked out wholesale and the entire systems purged after having been gone over for intel. Not much had been found, most bridge crews having been competent and coherent enough to destroy sensitive materials and data before falling to the enemy. Most of the Decepticon ships however would take longer to fix from a combination of internal damage or large chunks of the engines missing.

It was the depth of the "night" an abaritary designation that was followed by the organics. Not that the work stopped. Simply taken over by the "night shift." It was during one of these night shifts that data filtered in, from sensors seeded alot the systems of the Free Planets. The data raced in through the systems and triggered alarms. Messages flashed through the ring, triggering blares of sound and light.

The forces of the Greater Decepticon Empire had returned.

[LadyTevar]

It had been long frustrating weeks for Shimmer. While she approved the idea of removing the Limited AI from the ships, the limited intel they contained was useful only as a teaching tool to the Free Planets technicians and programmers in how to crack the systems. She was keeping a subtle eye on a couple of programmers, who were already experimenting with the new tricks they'd learned. She was impressed how fast they had coded a video game from the scrap code. Once again, Programmers were Programmers, no matter the species.

They might even find the secret bonus level Shimmer added.

It was the "night shift", but Shimmer didn't really notice time. She simply partitioned her awareness, allowing one section to 'rest' while another remained active, which also lowered her Energon expenditure by a fraction. But this half-awake state ended immediately as the first long-range sensors were triggered. As the alarms started to sound, Shimmer opened a channel to her fellow Cybertronians, "Red Alert. Decepticon Fleet detected in-bound."

A more private squirt was sent to Deathstrike. "Tracking enemy fleet and determining possible targets now."

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike gently put down the laser etcher. His work could wait. If the shipyards had performed their work to an acceptable standard, his standard, the fleet would already be deep in Decepticon territory, killing and burning. But that was not the case. The hammer had fallen here.

Plans for offensives were dumped out out of active memory into storage. "All units, this is Deathstrike. Prepare for counter attack." He seized data linkages and drank down information as he strode towards the command center, his right arm transforming into a fusion cannon.

[rhoenix]

Farshot had been assisting with the repairs of the former Decepticon ships as he could, performing them to the best of his ability each time. He had performed much of the menial work for the other repair crews, as he wasn't yet qualified for the more delicate repairs - nonetheless, repairs and cleanups had proceeded apace, to his satisfaction.

When the alert had come however, he instantly sent a note of apology to the foreman of the crew he was working with, moved a distance away from the ship he had been working on the hull of, and transformed into his assault craft form.

Farshot was no fool - he knew the Decepticon forces would not have taken the mugging they had received lying down. He had held himself on full combat-level alert ever since the battle, and was currently in the best condition he could be. The Nova Cannon lowered from his spaceframe, loading an AP/HE shell into the firing chamber as his internal manufacturing plant immediately began work on a new shell.

This done, he cast his sensors outward, marking and tagging everything and loading it into a new database for reference. "Farshot to Commander Deathstrike," he began as an encrypted comm directly to his unit leader. "I am near the docks. Orders and priorities, sir?"

[frigidmagi]

"Commander Deathstrike, we have confirmed reports of 3 enemy fleets attacking. I say again confirmed reports of 3 fleets. They're all striking different systems. Sending data now." Came the report. The data followed.

The 3 systems under attack were all logistical centers. The minions of the Greater Decepticon Empire seemed to be focusing on facilities that had to do with the storage, harvesting and refining of fuel resources. Within the FWA, starship fuel was mostly harvested from the gases and chemicals commonly found in the upper atmosphere of gas giants. Although many commerical ships used simple hydrogen reaction drives for in system commerce. Reactionless drives such as what the Empire, League and FWA military used were time consuming and expensive to build and maintain and hideously hard to repair when someone say... lobbed a huge explosive shell into them.

The systems were 15, 37 and 42 light years away, with the closest system under attack by the lightest forces, mostly escort forces and a trio of *Soundwave class capital ships, which mainly used to carry attacking air/ground forces. The other two systems were under attack by heavier forces, including new *Shockwave class capital ships, those were top of the line, command and control ships with heavy gun load outs. No actual Cybertronians had been sighted yet but the attacks were only underway for about 85 minutes when the report arrived at the command station.

* Both the League and FWA use code names for GDE ship classes, however they use different codes due to not being able to effectively share intel. All game posts will use GDE given class names for their starships. As one can note the GDE has chosen to name their capital class ships after Megatron's finests. As of yet there is no Megatron class starship, keep in mind that would be similar to the US having a Jesus class battleship or a God class Super Carrier.

[Dark Silver]

Grindstone had patched himself into the TacNet the moment the alert went out, even as he stalked towards the command center. He kept apprised of the situation. He had silently acknowledged Deathstrike's command, and entered the command center moments after the Team Leader had.

"We should split up - I will take a contingent of ships and head to the furthest System. I will hold off the Traitor Fleet until the other fleets are dealt with and reinforcements can arrive to assist us."

To Grindstone, the plan was simple and made sense. It would remain to see if Deathstrike would concur.

[LadyTevar]

Shimmer felt like grinding gears. 85 of the FWA's cycles had gone by before the warning had reached them. Some of it was the problems of FTL communications, but the rest was totally unsatisfactory and Shimmer would ask Deathstrike to put priority on fast communications after this. But that was in the back of her processor, the fore was completely on the intel they did have and that she could share over the TacNet.

"The closest system they are attacking with the *Soundwave class dropships. Another raid, going for Energon refineries," Shimmer passed along, using 'energon' as a catch-all for the various fuels the Free Worlds produced. "The other two systems have their newest Command ship, the *Shockwave. They will be a tougher battle to defeat. Obviously, the GDE believes making us divide our forces will give them a better chance at mission success. No 'Cons yet reported, but our intel is over 85 cycles old."

Even with organics, that was a long time. Planetary defenses have fallen in less.

[SirNitram]

"This is Shunt. If I can strap this fuel payload on, I can make it to the nearest system on my own drives if I transwarp outside of atmosphere. I'll be able to fight and land, but I won't be coming back unless they've got big reserve tanks." The Decepticon Seeker noted across the tacnet. "But I can fry those dropships."

[Cynical Cat]

"All of our forces will proceed to the system 15 light years away," said Deathstrike. "The Free Worlds Alliance will act as they see fit."