Transformers: Alone and Unafraid

[rhoenix]

Farshot and Shunt screamed through the fleet dodging point defense trying to pick a target. A com signal from a League ship reached them.

"We identified a command ship on your wing, coordinates incoming."

Farshot immediately opened an encrypted comm to Deathstrike and Shunt. "Commander, a League ship has identified a command ship in the enemy fleet. Shunt and I are moving to engage."

With that, he closed the link to Deathstrike, but kept the encrypted comm to Shunt open. "Alright Shunt, you go for the eyes, I'll take out the legs. Let's do this."

[General Havoc]

He hated to do this.

That was not normal. Cavalier normally loved nothing more than doing this exact thing. He enjoyed it. He reveled in it. But that enjoyment did not extend to this situation, for he was locked within a starship packed with organic slaves. And that made this horrifically dangerous.

But still, at this point, there was little choice.

As Cavalier turned the corner and saw the Mechkhans gathering before him. They opened fire with their light guns, personal weapons that had as much chance of harming Cavalier as they had of shooting down an FWA battleship. Their beams struck him all over, but barely warmed his surface. The ones in the back with a missile launcher were an entirely different matter however, and so he acted.

Without skipping a beat or a step, Cavalier shifted forms seamlessly, his frame rippling and contracting and expanding all at once. In bare seconds, where there had been a charging, armored knight, there now sat an armored cavalier of a very different sort. An olive-drab, twin-gunned battle tank, loomed before the Mechkhans like some kind of primeval monster conjured up by their enemies, its frontal armor impervious to anything their rifles could produce. And for those things it was not impervious to, it had another solution.

The bulkheads shook as the tank fired.

Two columns of fire the size of cars exploded from the ends of the twin five-inch barrels mounted in the tank's turret. No energy cannons shaped like artillery barrels for intimidation and effect, Cavalier's guns fired real shells, driven by real propellant, detonated by real, physical contact, and capable of awful destruction through the real means of raw kinetic power and high explosive. He had not employed these weapons before, for fear of literally breaking the ship apart, of the awful collateral damage they could produce. But sometimes one had to take risks.

The shells he fired were high explosive, omnidirectional bombs of flame and energy hurled directly at the Mechkhans with the missile launcher at speeds above Mach 3. Contained within an enclosed corridor, the shells would wreak terrible ruin among their ranks.

But unlike armor-piercing shells, they would hopefully stop there.

[LadyTevar]

Shimmer was being ignored. This wasn't unusual for her, as she was a spy and ignorance made her job easier. In this situation it meant that the Mechkans didn't take her as a serious target, and were rushing Deathstrike as the 'more dangerous' target.

Three Mechkans charged Deathstrike with blades, and Shimmer let them go to their deaths without another thought. Her focus was putting down the remainder of the ambushers, and she took aim and fired without mercy.

[frigidmagi]

Farshot immediately opened an encrypted comm to Deathstrike and Shunt. "Commander, a League ship has identified a command ship in the enemy fleet. Shunt and I are moving to engage."

With that, he closed the link to Deathstrike, but kept the encrypted comm to Shunt open. "Alright Shunt, you go for the eyes, I'll take out the legs. Let's do this."

Shunt was silent as they advanced on Farshot's chosen target. The two formations were sliding into each other, individual ships were still hundreds of kilometers distant, but in interstellar terms it was as if the two fleets were blasting away at each other from an arm's reach. Decepticon ships were staggering and falling out of the fight, air bleeding, burning cripples as firefights raged on them for control. League ships were not untouched, as the Decepticon ships hammered away at the lighter ships, not attempting to win the fight so much has blow a hole open to escape.

Farshot and Shunt found themselves in an intensely chaotic situation, coherent beams of light and particles slashing inches away from them as point defense batteries and sensors fought a vicious war against missiles and jammers.

"Feral," Grindstone said without emotion, even as he moved backwards towards a bulkhead, intending to trap Feral between himself and the wall, while he wrenched the arm from it's owner's torso.

"You have one chance. Turn away from Starvous' heretical Empire and I will spare your Spark....." Grindstone spoke in the cold monotone as his own optics flared brilliantly for a moment.

Feral leapt moving with the pull Grindstone was putting on his arm. Shorter and slimmer then Grindstone, the Decepticon flowed over Grindstone's shoulder kicked the heavy con in the face. Bouncing to his feet, Feral struck at Grindstone with his shining purple claws.

"You? Spare me? HA!" Was Feral's reply.

It is possible for a large and powerful warrior to deal with smaller opponents swiftly and decisively if he was willing to accept injury in return. Deathstrike possessed both the armour and the sheer bloodymindedness to employ such tactics.

He clubbed at one with his fusion cannon while reaching out to grab and crush a Mechkhal with his left hand. He lashed out with a kick at the third, to knock it down and then stomp it into wreckage. He would endure their stings. They would not survive his blows.

Deathstrike clubbed and hammered his smaller attacked down and crushed them taking minor damage in return. Additional enemy forces continued to advance upon him. Deathstrike just managed to jerk himself out of the way of a heavy energy blast that would have most definitely injured him, as he dodged he noticed several Mechkhals setting up crew served weapons behind prefabbed barriers.

Shimmer was being ignored. This wasn't unusual for her, as she was a spy and ignorance made her job easier. In this situation it meant that the Mechkans didn't take her as a serious target, and were rushing Deathstrike as the 'more dangerous' target.

Three Mechkans charged Deathstrike with blades, and Shimmer let them go to their deaths without another thought. Her focus was putting down the remainder of the ambushers, and she took aim and fired without mercy.

Shimmer was able to burn down a half a dozen of the enemy before she heard moment from behind her...

Spinning around, she saw yet another Mechkhal force with a trio of Remi bearing the same cannons that had knocked Cavalier onto his back. One hit from those could tear Shimmer in half.

Two columns of fire the size of cars exploded from the ends of the twin five-inch barrels mounted in the tank's turret. No energy cannons shaped like artillery barrels for intimidation and effect, Cavalier's guns fired real shells, driven by real propellant, detonated by real, physical contact, and capable of awful destruction through the real means of raw kinetic power and high explosive. He had not employed these weapons before, for fear of literally breaking the ship apart, of the awful collateral damage they could produce. But sometimes one had to take risks.

The shells he fired were high explosive, omnidirectional bombs of flame and energy hurled directly at the Mechkhans with the missile launcher at speeds above Mach 3. Contained within an enclosed corridor, the shells would wreak terrible ruin among their ranks.

But unlike armor-piercing shells, they would hopefully stop there.

Military Commanders have often threatened, declared or ordered, unleash hell. Cavalier actually did it, the shells tore through the Mechkhal formation, impacted on the bulkhead behind them and exploded. The explosion tore apart the surviving Mechkhals, who had been packed in closely in the hall and ripped a hole in the bulkhead they impacted on. The force and heat of the explosion washed over Cavalier like a tide. When the hellstorm subsided, Cavalier found himself, slightly scorched in front of a carpet of smashed, torn and melted dead Mechkhal bodies. The way ahead of him was for now... clear.

[Cynical Cat]

Setting up heavy weapons automatically made beings high priority targets. Deathstrike brought his fusion cannon to bear and fired at high power and minimum containment, for maximum "splash" of the target zone. Collateral damage wasn't an issue, while maximizing enemy fatalities was a priority.

[Dark Silver]

Feral's kick had done little true harm to the larger Decepticon - mostly because he was already moving backwards when the smaller Decepticon had done it. It added some small momentum to the movement though, and knocked Grindstone's head back a little. Grindstone didn't waste time with further banter, he had offered Feral a chance to end this confrontation and the traitor had not taken it.

But Grindstone felt it when he was performing the throw - and when Grindstone knew it was Feral, he didn't expect the throw or pin maneuver to actually do anything. Feral was built and skilled in unarmed, close in battle against larger and better armored foes - the enemy definition Grindstone absolutely fit. Grindstone had previously gauged the level of firepower he could safely unleash without risk of coring out the ship, and had adjusted his chest cannon's output accordingly. In this case, he increased the power to his primary weapon, and as Feral spun around to attack him, Grindstone opened fired with a concentrated beam of pinkish-purple colored hell from the weapon in his chest. Even as he did that, his hands retracted to be replaced by the sword glowing blade of a Energon infused sword blade on the left, and the Energon Projector on the right - which as it clicked into place, flared to life and created a heater shield of pure energy he could use to defend himself.

[rhoenix]

Shunt was silent as they advanced on Farshot's chosen target. The two formations were sliding into each other, individual ships were still hundreds of kilometers distant, but in interstellar terms it was as if the two fleets were blasting away at each other from an arm's reach. Decepticon ships were staggering and falling out of the fight, air bleeding, burning cripples as firefights raged on them for control. League ships were not untouched, as the Decepticon ships hammered away at the lighter ships, not attempting to win the fight so much has blow a hole open to escape.

Farshot and Shunt found themselves in an intensely chaotic situation, coherent beams of light and particles slashing inches away from them as point defense batteries and sensors fought a vicious war against missiles and jammers.

Flying at high speed through the chaotic melee of the capital-scale ship-to-ship combat, Farshot and Shunt closed on their target, though it was impossible to see from where they currently were. Ships of both sides were pitched viciously against one another in a seething morass of such volume of destructive power that Farshot wished he had capital-ship shields, though he knew it would be of little help when the beams he dodged were the size of buildings, and the missiles were enough to create large holes in continents.

Even so, he and Shunt darted through, finally getting the ship on sensor range. Farshot rapidly scanned the ship, not only confirming that it matched the description given, but also identifying weak points where heavy missiles might cause severe and specific harm.

As he closed on the ship, Farshot applied what he knew so far of engineering to outline the place on the ship that, when struck by a shell such as his, could shut down the ship's engines. Once he did so, he loaded an armor-piercing shell, configured to obliterate the part in question after penetrating the hull. He acquired aspect lock with his Nova cannon, and fired at the enemy ship.

Once the shell was away, flying its course as it began a parabola toward its target, Farshot darted away to fly up and back around, preparing for another pass at his target if necessary.

[SirNitram]

Shunt banked hard once the shot was away, pulling away from Farshot, swinging around to try and get a lock on the command ship's most vunerable points. The Decepticon teleporter was being raked with enemy fire, but armor held for now. A massive bomb was loosed, falling towards the largest object in nearby space: the command ship.

[Lys]

Whatever purpose the room used to serve, it now might as well have been a charnel house. Burnt corpses, severed limbs, and assorted debris littered its floors. Scorch and blast marks covered the walls. On one end the splintered remains of a blast door lay before the entryway to a similarly decorated hallway, while on the ceiling gaped a jagged hole, still faintly glowing around the edges. The atmosphere was thin, but smoke, dust, and noxious gasses still hung visibly in the air. The only survivor was a charred fleshy lump, its limbs broken and bent in all the wrong ways. Deaf, blind, and dumb to the world, it crawled forward toward an unknown destination. Beside it kneeled a bulky figure, its helmeted head shaking form side to side. Another figure, standing, nodded in response, pulled out its sidearm and squeezed the trigger twice. The lump shuddered and lay still. Under the circumstances there was nothing else that could have been done for it.

Blastcap's treads softly crunched over the remains of mechanical and organic beings as a platoon of heavily cyberized Pioneers in powered armour secured the area. She paid no mind to the scene around her, as she had seen its like more times that she cared to count. Her attention was instead focused on the reports from her unit commanders. They were all on target, no damage to drop pods, no casualties on entry or securing their entry areas. In short, the enemy had failed to mount anything resembling effective resistance. She couldn't even bring herself to feel contempt for such utter lack of professionalism, for it was pathetic beyond belief. Regardless, Blastcap would tear into them with the same cold efficiency with which she accomplished all her tasks, no matter how weak and pathetic they had let themselves become.

"Good work people," Blastcap said over the comms, "but it seems we kicked in the door too hard. This ship is already mission-killed and we've barely gotten started. New ROE: make best effort to minimize further damage to primary and secondary ship systems. You are still weapons free on heavy ordnance, but use only if strictly necessary. Advance quickly but cautiously, they'll be mounting real resistance soon. We'll converge on the command section and assault it simultaneously. Move out!"

Out in front the platoon technicians finished working on the entryway mechanisms, and the airlocked blast doors opened one after the other. The Pioneers were already in cover, weapons trained ahead and behind. There was a rush of air as pressure equalized, and a the sight of a number of Meckans waiting in ambush beyond. The Pioneers beat them to the punch and opened fire first, followed by the bass chattering roar of Blastcap's twin autocannon, and the would be ambushers were quickly shot to pieces. Clearly they had only just moved into position, and were not expecting an armoured vehicle, but Blastcap had been right, resistance was indeed stiffening. The next group wouldn't be so unprepared, and with that in mind, the Pioneers advanced onward.

[LadyTevar]

Shimmer was able to burn down a half a dozen of the enemy before she heard moment from behind her...

Spinning around, she saw yet another Mechkhal force with a trio of Remi bearing the same cannons that had knocked Cavalier onto his back. One hit from those could tear Shimmer in half.

"Scrap..." Shimmer cursed, as Deathstrike once again let loose with his fusion cannon. "More Remi behind us, Deathstrike, with Cannon," she warned, dodging for cover behind the bulkhead Cavalier's body had broken through. "We need to rejoin the o..."

A massive blast echoed down the corridor ahead, cutting Shimmer's words off. Cavalier's cannon was not a sound that anyone could miss. "Primus.... Deathstrike, we have to move!"

[General Havoc]

There was nothing like the thunder of one's own guns to put one in a better mood.

The Mechkhans before Cavalier simply disintegrated, flying into constituent pieces as a pulse of high explosive force that had nowhere to go but into their bodies washed over them. The same pulse washed over Cavalier, but Cavalier was a tank, and tanks were built to take it. High explosive was notoriously bad at killing tanks, hence the development of armor piercing weapons. Reloading his guns with more HE, Cavalier collated damage reports, and sidelined them.. Coming back from a battle with an intact coat of paint was a rarity anyway, and Cavalier always thought he looked more intimidating covered in scorch, scuff, and ricochet marks.

Not that this mattered overmuch right now, but still...

There was the sound of helacious fighting behind him, as an energy cannon that could only have been Deathstrike (or at least he hoped that was what it was) mingled with screams, shouts, the revving of motors and the clash of metal on metal. Shimmer was calling something to Deathstrike, it would have taken too long to parse it out of everything else, and the sounds of gunfire were increasing, not abating.

This left Cavalier with an unpleasant decision.

Every second this fight went on, the helpless slaves aboard this ship would die. Even Cavalier wasn't fool enough to blame that on the fact that Deathstrike and Grindstone were Decepticons. No matter how careful the others were, no matter how careful he was, they were Cybertronians, the nearest thing in the galaxy to legendary gods, and when they fought, every damn thing around them died. Particularly in a circumstance like this, in enclosed spaces and a pressurized hull, people would die. The Decepticons' casual attitude towards collateral damage would not help, but it was not the reason for this. Everything in Cavalier's spark told him that the best way to mitigate this matter was to end the fight as quickly as possible, and that meant taking the bridge and eliminating whoever was in charge of this damned ship. Of his capacity to do this alone, Cavalier had no doubts. He would have been less than himself if he had. But that wasn't the issue.

The issue was the others, and whatever furball they had found themselves in. None of them had called him for help, they were Cybertronians after all, a fact which made even Shimmer easily a match for almost any other thing to be found in the galaxy. Moreover he knew that Grindstone, and maybe Deathstrike as well, would sooner die than admit they needed the help of an Autobot. But that said, they were all still clearly fighting against something tough enough to survive several rounds against a trio of Cybertronian warmachines (well, two-and-a-half perhaps, but that wasn't Shimmer's fault). The fighting was intensifying, not dying down. And Cavalier had no idea what the nature of the opposition was.

Everything, literally everything within his spark told him that they could handle it, and that in the absence of orders to the contrary, he had to move on and end this damned fight before it broke the ship apart. But even as he considered the option, he remembered a certain conversation that he had had with one of the Decepticons back in that corridor, not all that long ago, the one he had been trying to distract himself from every cycle of every day ever since. And with an angry growl of his engine, and all the reluctance a tank could visibly muster, Cavalier brought his turret and chassis around, grinding metal from under his treads, and rolled back around the corner.

Seeing what was going on made him feel a little better. Only a little.

Grindstone was in melee combat with what had to be another Cybertronian. Deathstrike was firing his fusion cannon at something off the corridor-line that Cavalier couldn't see, but from the sound of it, something reasonably intense. And Shimmer was crouched in cover by the bulkhead that he himself had burst through a little while ago, as down at the end of the corridor, the way they had come, an entire pack of enemy forces, armed with the same heavy weapons that had managed to hurl all seventy tons of him off of his feet. What those weapons would do to Shimmer, who had a third Cavalier's mass and a sixth of his armor, did not require much imagining.

"Shimmer," he called out, his loudspeakers at full blast. "Duck!" It was a brief message, but then it had to be, because a moment later, everyone's vocal capacity was pre-empted by the thunder of an active volcano.

Cavalier's cannons barked to life once again, as he aimed his shells squarely at the pack of heavy-weapons-armed mechanical elephants that Shimmer had been taking cover from. He fired in echelon, one gun at a time, two shells from each cannon as he vented high explosive death back at the enemy formation, the shells screaming past Shimmer's position, past Deathstrike and Grindstone, and towards the enemy formation. The very thunder of the discharge knocked deck plates loose and caused the bulkheads around Cavalier to strain. But while Shimmer, wisely, took cover, Cavalier did not, for he was a tank, and tanks produced their own cover. The enemy had powerful weapons, but he was in vehicular form, with his strongest armor pointed square at the enemy, and sloped against his shots.

More slaves would die because he had made this decision, but it was the only one he could make.

[LadyTevar]

Shimmer moved as soon as her audio input registered Cavalier's warning, hitting the deck just before the roar of the tank-bot's weaponry echoed overhead. "Another nanoclick's warning next time, Cavalier?" she tight-beamed, searching for a way to escape the sudden trap.

[frigidmagi]

Cavalier's shells howled down the corridor tearing through the group, missing Feral and Grindstone by a bare meter. The first shell slammed into the central Remi, the explosion was awe inspiring as the other Remi besides it went up in sympathetic denotations. The second shell flew through this holocaust exploding on the other side of the fire. Deathstrike, Shimmer, Grindstone and Feral had a wave of burning oxygen driven by the shock wave wash over them like a tidal wave.

Once again the result was pure devastation. This sight in addition to the pure bloody murder unleashed by Deathstrike broke the Mechkhal who had been attacking, they fled. When the light, heat and sound died down, Deathstrike could see the backsides of fleeing Mechkhal. Grindstone on the other hand found himself alone, Feral having disappeared. Shimmer raised her head and saw the corridor behind the group on fire, but empty. Besides the sounds of flight, the corridor was silent.

As he closed on the ship, Farshot applied what he knew so far of engineering to outline the place on the ship that, when struck by a shell such as his, could shut down the ship's engines. Once he did so, he loaded an armor-piercing shell, configured to obliterate the part in question after penetrating the hull. He acquired aspect lock with his Nova cannon, and fired at the enemy ship.

Once the shell was away, flying its course as it began a parabola toward its target, Farshot darted away to fly up and back around, preparing for another pass at his target if necessary.

The shell smashed into the ship staggering it, the engine catching on fire forced the GDE ship out of formation. An increasing ragged formation, as GDE ships fell out of formation due to bombardment, boarding or being blown apart by the League fleet. The remaining ships were clearly redlining their sub-light engines.

Shunt banked hard once the shot was away, pulling away from Farshot, swinging around to try and get a lock on the command ship's most vunerable points. The Decepticon teleporter was being raked with enemy fire, but armor held for now. A massive bomb was loosed, falling towards the largest object in nearby space: the command ship.

The bomb "fell" like a feather, pulled in by feint gravity emissions of the GDE ship. The bomb's sensors sensed the ship and triggered the detonator. The resulting explosion tore a hole in the armor and hull of the ship the size of Shunt.

Out in front the platoon technicians finished working on the entryway mechanisms, and the airlocked blast doors opened one after the other. The Pioneers were already in cover, weapons trained ahead and behind. There was a rush of air as pressure equalized, and a the sight of a number of Meckans waiting in ambush beyond. The Pioneers beat them to the punch and opened fire first, followed by the bass chattering roar of Blastcap's twin autocannon, and the would be ambushers were quickly shot to pieces. Clearly they had only just moved into position, and were not expecting an armoured vehicle, but Blastcap had been right, resistance was indeed stiffening. The next group wouldn't be so unprepared, and with that in mind, the Pioneers advanced onward.

The platoon advanced into the enemy, the air thick with energy and excited particles. Blastcap trundled forward, unstoppable... Until the deck blew out from under her. Blastcap found herself facing a heavy weapons Meckhal company, that was expecting her. A rather sizeable charge was tossed under her and she felt her treads blown off. Pain lanced through her circuits and she heard renewed battle from above.

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike was not known for turning down easy kills. He opened fire on the fleeing Mechkhals.

[rhoenix]

The shell smashed into the ship staggering it, the engine catching on fire forced the GDE ship out of formation. An increasing ragged formation, as GDE ships fell out of formation due to bombardment, boarding or being blown apart by the League fleet. The remaining ships were clearly redlining their sub-light engines.

Had Farshot been in his robot form, he would have smiled. As it was, once the damage result was confirmed, he moved onto the most nearby GDE ship - rapidly scanning it to identify where to fire an armor-piercing shell so that the engines would be crippled or destroyed, gained aspect lock, and fired his Nova cannon.

"Let's see how many of these ships make it home, Shunt. I'm aiming for 'none'," Farshot said over the comm to Shunt.

[LadyTevar]

"We have no time for mop-up, Deathstrike, if we want this ship we have to move out -now-," Shimmer urged, turning to Cavalier and Grindstone. "Have they blocked off the passage forward? Can we get through?"

[Cynical Cat]

"Shimmer, attempting to disguise your squeamishness as incompetent military advice will no cause me to act on it," growled Deathstrike. "Sweep and kill as we move to the bridge," he ordered.

[LadyTevar]

That stung, but Shimmer said nothing, merely moving out as ordered. "Cavalier, let's go," she said, hopping over his armored body and stalking down the hallway in the direction they'd been trying to go.

[SirNitram]

"Farshot, be advised, that was my last heavy ordinance." Shunt banked, avoiding fire. "I can do damage once the armor belt is down, but I was designed for superiority, not bombing."

[Dark Silver]

Feral was gone.

In the disturbance of Cavalier's wreckless blast that only barely missed Grindstone and his opponent by the barest of margins, Feral had managed to escape. In the time it took Cavalier to show up, and make the blast which could have done more harm than good, Grindstone's own blast missed Feral, and left a gaping hole in the bulkhead, and several more outward.

The purple Decepticon looked back as Deathstrike made his order, and narrowed his optics slightly - but didn't disobey. Instead he nodded, and moved to go down the hall, towards the Bridge.

[rhoenix]

"Farshot, be advised, that was my last heavy ordinance." Shunt banked, avoiding fire. "I can do damage once the armor belt is down, but I was designed for superiority, not bombing."

"Acknowledged," Farshot said, even as he had an idea. While he was rapidly scanning the next ship, he fired off a tight-beam comm to Shunt, outlining the weak spots and sensitive areas on the ship that Shunt's weaponry could affect.

That done, he carefully outlined the place on the engine to fire a shell into that would bring the ship's engines to a halt, acquired an aspect lock, and fired another armor-piercing shell.

[General Havoc]

It wasn't like Cavalier had never shot anyone in the back. With tanks, it was often the only effective way to do it. But given Deathstrike's reply to Shimmer, it was obvious that he was simply running up the score. Someone had lifted arms against a Decepticon, and in Cavalier's experience, that was usually enough to send most Cons into an orgy of reciprocal bloodletting. Reasons, mercy, military irrelevance, none of these things generally entered a Decepticon's head. It was one of the reasons it was so damned easy to get them to behave predictably. And so damned hard to get one off your tail. Cavalier had exploited this more than once, distracting cons by lobbing a shell or two at them, which usually was enough to get them to chase him halfway around a planet for reciprocity. He'd also seen the mark in their handiwork, leveling entire cities because some desperate or foolish organic had had the temerity to throw a rock at them.

He simply ignored Deathstrike's order, the strongest protest he would permit himself to lodge right now. They could chase armed slaves through this ship all day if they wanted to and get no closer to actually accomplishing something. Short of progressively exterminating the entire crew (which might or might not be within their capacities), the four of them were not going to be able to systematically sweep an entire starship, not one sized for Cybertronians and their slaves, nor secure areas of it from flanking assault. The best they might do would be to consolidate and move as a tight pack, but Deathstrike had made it abundantly clear that he was not interested in suggestions from mere Autobots. Nor was Cavalier interested in offering them right now. Instead, as Shimmer hopped over him and moved off towards the bridge, Cavalier reverted to robotic form and did the same.

"We'll get through," he said to Shimmer as he caught up with her, "whether they've blocked the passage or not."

Deep inside, he loaded a pair of armor piercing shells into his cannons. If he couldn't shoot these Decepticons, he would find some that he could.

[Lys]

The platoon advanced into the enemy, the air thick with energy and excited particles. Blastcap trundled forward, unstoppable... Until the deck blew out from under her. Blastcap found herself facing a heavy weapons Meckhal company, that was expecting her. A rather sizeable charge was tossed under her and she felt her treads blown off. Pain lanced through her circuits and she heard renewed battle from above.

"Hold position," Blastcap ordered as she crashed into the lower deck. The pain from her threads blowing out was noted with minor annoyance while gunfire flashed around her and bounced of her armour. An ambush, she had been expecting one, but by focusing on the enemy before her and not on looking for traps, she had let herself fall into it. It was sloppy, it was a mistake, but there were no recriminations and no anger in Blastcap's mind. She knew that sooner or later one such oversight would kill her, but that day was not today. Today she still lived, and that was their mistake. The enemy surely thought they had her dead to rights, they were wrong, and that was to her advantage.

Her boxy vehicle form back-flipped itself into a tall, bulky humanoid running backwards, autocannon chattering above the shoulders. Three outstretched arms held a number of small looking discs, while optical sensors and processor units raced to run a quick analysis of the structure that Blastcap found herself in. Having found various likely weak points, her arms threw the discs at them. Breacher charges, meant to blow through blast doors and bulkheads, to cut through walls and support beams, they flew through the air like frisbees and attached themselves to whatever they struck.

The enemy had to have set up a cross-deck gravitational field for their trap to work, and in those conditions, Blastcap too could play the deck collapsing game. If her analysis was right, the upper deck would collapse under the front ranks of the enemy above, and atop the front ranks of the enemy below. Her troops would be fine if they had held position as ordered, and the fallen deck would provide Blastcap some cover. If her analysis was wrong, the charges would at least fill the room with a hail of metal splinters and work havoc among the enemy.

Once all the discs had attached themselves to something, Blascap folded herself back to her vehicle form, her guns barely pausing their suppressive fire. She could not move, but it would double her armour by halving her surface area. "Fire in the hole!" Blastcap warned over the comms as she hit the detonator.

[LadyTevar]

"Grindstone, do you want to take point?" Shimmer asked, looking back at the Decepticon. "Or do you need to watch for whatever you were fighting before Cavalier returned?"

[Dark Silver]

Grindstone wasn't fuming...
but he was not happy either.

Feral left in the midst of their fight, Deathstrike was.....being one minded, Cavalier was pressing on his diodes with his attitude.....

Shimmer's voice reached his audio sensors, and brought him out of the state he was going into, causing him to bring his attention back to the present.

He saw Cavalier stride off, without waiting for them, Deathstrike killing the retreating foe, and saying to "press on" and kill whatever got in their way. While Grindstone understood the sentiment and orders, it didn't mean he had to like them. To him, once the opponents gave way, it was time to press on, not needlessly slaughter a broken and defeated foe.

Not when they couldn't give proper fight back, anyway.

If it was possible, Grindstone would have sighed, instead, he looked to Shimmer, then nodded.

"It was Feral....a former....comrade." Grindstone said it not softly, but not very loudly either, just enough for Shimmer to hear. "Stay close, Feral can attack again at anytime."