Transformers: Steel Reign

[Charon]

Crimson shifted again to her bright red Harley Altmode and pulled alongside Shellshock's mobile artillery, stretching her sensors so she could give the older 'bot more firing options. But something was conspicuously absent from her sensor data.

"Shellshock? Where's Hornet?!"

For a long moment Shellshock paused his thought processes, worried that Hornet had already gotten himself shot down. He projected into his optics Hornet's last position and followed where he should be.

Shellshock's tracks stopped as he noticed another bot was with Hornet, apparently talking, and hugging. His vision zoomed and his IFF cleared that it was a Decepticon.

"Pit-damned little runt is gonna get us all slagged with him..." Muttered the old warbot, loud enough for Crimson to hear.

Hornet was too close to the Decepticon to be sure of a clean shot, and the risk of the Decepticon taking Hornet hostage was not something Shellshock wanted to deal with. Crimson, however, was very good with her pistol.

"Crimon, grid Delta-36. When I give you a clear shot you bring the con down."

Shellshock openned his comm while his sensors continued tracking his missiles. "Hornet! Get your scrawny skid plate back in the air before you get slagged!"

[LadyTevar]

Crimson's sensors shot over in that direction, and her IFF screamed the warning, even as she watched Hornet walk over and start -talking- to the green & gold Decepticon. Her CPU raced over her codex of identified Decepticons and came up blank as she transformed, drawing both pistols out of subspace. "Neg on the ID, Shellshock, but if that InsectiCon even crimps Hornet's armor I am shooting every one of those insect legs off one by one."

[Dark Silver]

"Hi there!" he chirped at Waspinator in his eternally friendly voice. "My name's Hornet. Are you okay?" He rubbed the back of his head where Waspinator had landed on him. "I think you might have crashed."

Waspinator blinked his multifaceted optics, his normal robot arms dropping to his chest, the four "legs" of his insect mode following suit - indeed, Waspinator had for all intents and purposes, six arms.


"Wazzzzzpinator was minding own business, relaxing on air current when BOOM!" and with the the "BOOM" came a flaying of arms into the air, before settling back, "Protectobot right up the Kazootie. Then Jet-bot save Wazzzzzpinator by breaking his fall. Maybe Universe not hate Wazzzzzpinator so much now."

[General Havoc]

Crash landings were something Hornet understood very well, and he unconsciously winced as Waspinator animatedly described what had happened. It reminded him of the time he had been minding his own business above a human air base when a C-130 Hercules decided to plot a landing course right through his cockpit. None of the humans had been hurt, fortunately, but Wheeljack had not been pleased when he asked him how he had managed to get a propeller shoved through his right elevator.

In the back of his mind, Hornet did retain the appreciation that they were in the middle of a battle, and that he did not have all day to stand around and talk. Still, he couldn't just shoot Waspinator or run off. Weird though his construction (and speech) might have been, he certainly looked like he had genuinely had enough of getting knocked around. And Hornet could appreciate that much.

"Well I'm glad I could help!" he said with a smile. "Like I said, my name's Hornet, and I'm an Autobot." He gestured to the Autobot symbol on his shoulder, as though his IFF hadn't already demonstrated who he was.

"We're... sort of here to fight with the Decepticons for a while," he admitted sheepishly, hoping Waspinator wouldn't take it personally, "but... if you want, maybe you can come back with us after we're done! I'll tell all of the others not to shoot at you so you won't get blown up anymore, and the Protectobots won't mess with you either." Struggling for some other argument to bolster his case with, he suddenly decided on a calculated gamble. This Decepticon was barely any larger than he was, and from the sound of it, felt that the universe was kicking him around like a toy, a feeling Hornet knew well...

"Plus, if you come with us, we'll try to make sure the Decepticons don't mess with you either. I know they don't like... bots like us much, because we're too small or something." He was largely making this up as he went along, as he had no idea what the attitude of the Decepticons towards smaller models was, but given how many Autobots considered him next-to-worthless, he couldn't imagine that the Decepticons treated theirs particularly well, especially not with Waspinator's joy at having been spared a collision with the dirt.

"Hornet! Get your scrawny skid plate back in the air before you get slagged!"

... for example.

Hornet glanced anxiously back towards where his friends were. "I... I gotta go and help my friends!" he said, almost pleadingly, hoping Waspinator would understand all this. "Just... just try to stay under cover or something, and I'll tell all the Autobots not to hurt you, and then you can come with us when we're done, okay?"

He patted Waspinator on the shoulder and beamed. "It'll be great! You'll see! I'll see you when we're done with the battle!" And with that, before Waspinator had a chance to change his mind, Hornet sprinted off, shifted into an airplane, and took off into the air once again, his radar lighting up dozens of targets as he rapidly caught up with everyone else.

"Hornet to everybody, don't shoot at the little green and yellow 'con, the one marked..." he glanced at his uplink and read off the auto-mark, "Foxtrot Gamma 1 on radar. I think he's friendly! He just wanted to not get blown up. Don't shoot him."

He hoped this would work.

[SirNitram]

"I can sympathize with any Cybertronian that's had enough.. And we took a chance on one of the Seekers the other day." Overload rumbled. "Shellshock's call, but I don't have a problem. If he starts something, well, bug, windshield, it's part of being a hauler."

[LadyTevar]

Crimson's comment was much straighter to the point. "Did he harm you, Hornet?" she asked bluntly. The Universe awaited the answer to that question quietly, to see if its favorite running joke got to play out.

[General Havoc]

Hornet hesitated at Crimson's question. "Um... no," he said, "I mean... he sorta landed on top of me, but I don't think I got dented, and he was really happy that I broke his fall after he got knocked out of the air." He wasn't sure if that qualified or not. "We didn't fight or anything, if that's what you mean. He just got knocked down by some jet wash is all."

[rhoenix]

Displaying some of the relentless flying practice he'd undertaken in the past few days, Firetrack suddenly gained about fifty feet of elevation, and began to strafe-fire at the first Decepticon he'd shot a missile at. Keeping up a constant stream of pulse-laser fire toward his target, his vernier thrusters and anti-gravity engines allowed him to whip around and begin another strafing run after he had passed the Decepticon by.

However, nobody would call him overly predictable. After the third complete circuit of strafing, he rapidly turned toward the second group of Decepticons he'd fired at, who were now taking cover behind a building and attempting to assemble a large cannon. Rapidly gaining altitude as he neared their location, he used his active scanners to bombard the small group with a variety of sensor beams. Once he'd gotten a good scan, he readied another missile, again reprogramming it to fire at a specific set of coordinates instead of a designated target. Holding the missile on hot standby with the lock engaged, he opened a tight-band encrypted channel to Shellshock. "Firetrack to Shellshock. Requesting artillery strike at these coordinates."

Waiting for Shellshock's confirmation, he would fire this missile immediately afterward.

It was during this time that he heard the transmissions about Hornet and his new "friend." Keeping a sensor eye in that direction, he manually altered Waspinator's IFF signature from red (hostile target) to purple (potentially hostile), and setup a background logging process to keep tabs on his activities while the rest of his sensors and consciousness was engaged in obliterating Decepticons.

[Charon]

Shellshock had begun moving again, he said nothing over the communicators however.

"Crimson my order has not changed. Take the Decepticon down."

[Dark Silver]

Without giving Waspinator time to respond, Hornet flew off, leaving the mini-Decepticon alone.

Alone with other Autobots undoubtedly about - undoubtedly especially since Hornet told him it was so.

"hmm..Wazzzzzpinator time to leave!"

Waspinator looked around, before transforming, the black and red robot turning into a large black and red hornet, it's gold multifaceted eyes scanning.

"Wazzzzzpinator toodles!" he said, before beating his wings and heading back into the air.


----------------

Defensor poured bolts of energy and plasma into the Decepticon defenses, his forcescreen taking the incoming blows of deadly energy from the Decepticons.

As the other Autobots began their assault, attacking the Decepticons who were thrown into disarray with the flying debris, Omega Supreme continued his attacks upon the Sentinal Robots.

[LadyTevar]

"He's running like a petro-rabbit, Shellshock," Crimson said, turning away from the retreating Waspinator. "I've got him in my sensors, if he turns back I'll shred him. Let's get the ones who are actually firing back first." She gave the old warbot a grin. "Besides, he'll be the one explaining to Megs why he ran without firing a shot, right?"

[Charon]

Shellshock was quiet for a few moments before responding. "I doubt it. But the issue is done with for now." Shellshock turned on his comm to all of his squad. "Shellshock to all units, push forward, we need to get to Omega and Defensor two cycles ago."

Shellshock brought his main cannon around, firing at another emplacement as he launched three more missiles. He was left with three for now, but his auto-loaders should be done rearming him soon.

[SirNitram]

"Already there!" Overload, as always, hit the front lines first, and in a way simiilar to a freight train. A hapless Decepticon, about to man a defensive gun, found himself smashed and ground under the hauler, before it transformed and hoisted it's sleek, combative body, and began to unleash Pit Fighting on the normal-sized defenders.

Opponents are weapons too.

[LadyTevar]

"He didn't shoot Hornet," Crimson pointed out to Shellshock. "I'm simply returning the favor. Now, do you want me to run ahead and paint you a few targets, or stay and cover you?"

[Charon]

"And?" Was Shellshock's response to Crimson's point about Hornet's new friend. "The only reason I didn't bring him down myself was because he was too small for the shot. Go ahead and cover Overload's back."

As he spoke his rear AP cannon turned and laid down withering fire on a decepticon that had taken a few shots that had reflected off the warbots thick hide. "I can cover myself for now."

[General Havoc]

Hornet had no idea about the arguments transpiring on the ground regarding Waspinator, and the very idea that Shellshock wanted to shoot him anyway did not even enter his head. Back in the air once more, Hornet's radar lit up the sky, revealing a chaotic, twisting battlefield, that briefly overwhelmed his capacity to follow. Had there been friendly squadrons of human fighters in the air, Hornet would likely have conformed with them, both for the protection that came with having friends at your back, and so as to help safeguard them from whatever the Decepticons intended to throw. There were no such squadrons however, and his meeting with Waspinator had placed him well away from whatever friendly Autobots were in the air, all of whom were heavily engaged already. He hesitated, a terrible mistake, but one he couldn't help, unsure of what to do or who to engage.

And then he spotted something.

A flight of fighters, ten modified MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters, all likely piloted by Decepticon headmasters, the sort that he had engaged with once before back in North America. They were flying straight and level, and nearly five hundred feet below Hornet, all of them preparing to make a ground run, not at Omega Supreme, whose armor and defences were utterly impenetrable, but instead at the lighter Autobots who followed in his wake...

The radar signals mutely displayed the MiGs probable targets: Crimson, Stryke, Shellshock, Overload...

He thought about shouting a warning, but the radio was already crowded with messages, and even if the others got the warning in time, even if they turned and fired on the incoming MiGs, could they get them all before the MiGs could launch their ordinance? And once they did...

He made a snap decision.

"Hornet to everyone on the ground!" he yelped into his radio, his light, chirpy voice rattling off Brevity Code terms as if they would mean something to the ground bots. "Tally ten hostiles inbound fast nine o'clock low angels 2, setting up rifleshots! Warning red! Warning red!"

It was no good, even if the others heard him, they could not wheel around to deal with all ten ground attack aircraft at the same time. Before he had even had a chance to think about what he was doing, Hornet hit his afterburners, made a sharp right turn, and rocketed towards the enemy MiGs. He took the time to call one more word over the radio. "Bouncing!" before going silent, flipping on the aspect seekers on his missiles, and locking onto the two lead MiGs. He waited half a second for the missiles to acquire their locks, before loosing two missiles which rocketed away, accelerating in seconds to Mach eight.

The first MiG never knew what hit him. Hornet was showing up on radar, but the headmaster pilot had not yet had a chance to order his tail end element to break and cover them. The missile hit him dead center of his fuselage, and blotted him out of the sky like a firecracker. His wingman reacted faster, jinking to the side as hard as his airplane could manage, but the missile's proximity fuse detonated less than fifteen feet away and tore his wing off, sending him spinning towards the ground.

The remaining eight MiGs did not even have time to realize what had just happened, before Hornet lined up one of the center ones in his sights, activated his Gatling lasers, and fired a hundred rounds in less than a second and a half. Hornet's lasers were weak weapons by the standards of a Transformer, barely able to scratch the paint on any kind of armored figure, but the MiGs were human fighters, made of human materials, and the laser blasts punched through them like they were made of cardboard. The barrage amputated the MiG's entire tail structure, leaving the remainder of the fuselage to cartwheel into the ground.

Hornet did not have time to line up another shot, for he was moving at over 1500 miles per hour, and a second later he rocketed right through the MiG squadron, barely avoiding a mid-air collision with one of the enemy fighters. With three of their number shot down in as many seconds, the remaining MiGs scattered in every direction, no doubt believing themselves under attack by something more than just a single young Autobot. One caught an errant SAM from somewhere and exploded into a million pieces. The others desperately tried to reform and reacquire their new target.

Hornet had barely had time to think. The MiGs had abandoned their attack run, which was the important thing, as it meant that the others on the ground were safe, for now. On the other hand, they now knew he was here, and he had sacrificed his advantage in altitude bouncing them. Several of them were already in hot pursuit, streaking after him with their own afterburners raging, no doubt eager to take revenge for their fellows that he had just shot down.

If Hornet had possessed a throat, he would have felt it catch at the realization that five enemy MiGs were on his tail. As it was, he froze for a moment, still flying straight and level, and was rewarded a second later when his radar reported three missiles inbound.

That woke him up.

He jinked right as hard as he could, releasing chaff bombs behind him to try to throw off the missiles. His G-meter rose to eight as he allowed the turn to drag him down nearly to treetop level. One missile locked onto the chaff and blew up harmlessly a thousand yards to the rear. Another one couldn't handle the turn and crashed into a tree trying to come about. The last missile however was a radar aspect seeker, and doggedly locked onto Hornet's fuzzy, indistinct radar signature, eating up the distance behind him as Hornet slammed on his afterburners for an acceleration that would have killed any human pilot. Still the missile closed, until Hornet's flight computer screamed a warning to eject.

Hornet didn't have time to reflect on the absurdity. Instead, he did something fairly absurd. With the missile closing on him, he pulled a Half-Cuban Eight.

He pulled up as hard as he could into an Immelmann Turn, a half-turn that resulted in him flying back the way he had come, only inverted. It was one of the most ridiculous things he could possibly have done, for an Immelmann turn gave the pursuing enemy missile a chance to smack him dead on as he lost speed. Hornet however had no pilot to worry about, and his oversized, vectored-thrust engine, and his sturdy tail elevators permitted him to pull the maneuver with a harrowing twelve G's of pressure, so much that alarms exploded to life, and he felt his fuselage starting to warp...

... but only for a moment. The missile, however fast it might be, simply could not keep up with such a maneuver and missed wide, exploding fifty meters behind Hornet, bucking him about but not causing any damage. He flipped back over, and dove for the trees, only to find himself facing three of the formerly pursuing MiGs, now flying straight at him, head on, at a combined closing speed of over 3,000 miles per hour.

There was no time to break. All he could do was try and blow through.

He activated a third missile and loosed it in a snapshot, not even bothering to gain a lock as he opened fire with both gatling weapons and jinked and spun, rolling over and over, trying to evade the fire he knew was incoming. The enemy planes, their missiles unable to lock in time, opened fire with their own guns. MiG-29s carried 30mm machine cannons, but these had been modified, their weapons replaced with lasers. All three erupted to life, filling the air with bolts of red energy, and not even Hornet could evade them all. He cried out in pain, forgetful of the fact that his radio was on and broadcasting, as the lasers burned into his fuselage and the leading edges of his wings, cracking his canopy, rupturing several hydraulic lines, and burning streaks into his metal skin. The pain threw his aim off, and his lasers winged one of the incoming MiGs, damaging it enough to cause it to break off, but not badly enough to shoot it down. The planes approached one another at supersonic speeds, but Hornet's missile was slightly faster, and the lead MiG's pilot was too target fixated to see it lancing in. His plane disintegrated into a fireball and a hail of parts a half second before Hornet flew straight into and through the cloud of debris, the burning energon scorching his paint black.

He kept the afterburner raging as he soared through the air, biting back his tears from the sizzling pain that shot all over his fuselage and wings. "This..." he stammered into the radio, "this is... Hornet... I got... four of them, I think. They... they hit me, but I think I'm okay... there's a lot more of them, but they're not making ground runs anymore..."

He looked about, seeing the remaining MiGs on radar desperately trying to regroup and figure out what had just hit them and decapitated their squadron. Most had jettisoned their ground attack ordinance, and were now milling around, leaderless. It did not at all occur to Hornet that, having shot down four of the enemy MiGs, his total number of air-to-air kills was now five... which qualified him as an Ace.

"What... what should I do?" he asked, trying and failing to keep the pain out of his voice, as he slowly braked off back down to cruising speeds.

[rhoenix]

Hearing Hornet's chirpy voice sounding all business came as something of a surprise, especially as he tersely described the situation. Firetrack was still awaiting precise ordinance from Shellshock, which meant that he had a few free minutes to help out the smaller flyer.

Due to the earlier exercise, Firetrack now had a much healthier respect for the small flyer's capabilities. Moreover, one couldn't help but like the little guy.

So, his vernier thrusters whipping his front end around, Firetrack lit up his main turbine to maximum, loosing a sonic boom almost immediately as he accelerated. Setting his radar to prioritize the MiG targets first, they lit up in a more neon red than the others, along with approximate damage taken per target.

Despite Firetrack using his main engines at their strongest, the MiG's ahead of him either hadn't noticed him, or hadn't deemed him a threat as they began to assemble into a squadron in mid-air.

Opening a tight-beam encrypted message to Hornet, Firetracks' message was terse, but not unfriendly. "Firetrack to Hornet. Acknowledged, and closing."

The new squadron of MiG's was now in a Vee formation, with the points outward. Deciding to save his remaining three medium missiles for more hardened targets, he raised his rocket launcher array, and fired two at the rear-most MiG as he rapidly closed the distance. Just as the two unguided rockets exploded violently within that MiG's tail section, causing the front end to fall crazily down to earth, Firetrack's pulse lasers were firing non-stop at the other MiG's along the right side of their Vee formation.

As he streaked past what was left of the formation, the glowing reddish-orange trail of his exhaust quickly faded, but nonetheless lent credence to his new engines as three of the five MiG's on that side fell to earth. Just as suddenly, he cut the power to his main turbine, and used his vernier thrusters to rapidly spin around, facing the direction he'd just come from. That done, he lit up his main turbine again, noting with concern the elevated heat levels of his engine.

Lining up the closest MiG in his sights as Firetrack rapidly accelerated past Mach 1 and steadily gained speed, his pulse lasers beginning to flash at the remaining targets. Their behavior seemed to suggest that they were either furious or frightened; given the amount of firepower headed his way, Firetrack reasoned "furious" was a bit more likely.

Dropping chaff and beginning to use his vernier thrusters more, the missiles on his tail were mostly avoided. However, two were heat-seekers, and doggedly held his tail. Flying directly at two of the other MiG's, he fired steadily at one with his pulse lasers, seeing some of the shots hit the MiG's fuel tank, causing the plane to explode. He flew directly through the expanding fireball at the other MiG, the two missiles following eagerly.

Just as he cleared the explosion and less than ten meters behind the other MiG, Firetrack cut off his main engines altogether, and let himself fall.

In the sudden silence of flying without the noise of his engine, Firetrack watched one of the missiles strike the unfortunate MiG directly in the engine, causing it to explode as well. However, the other missile wasn't fooled by his tactic, striking the middle of his cockpit, though didn't explode. Though he didn't currently have a pilot, from what his diagnostic sensors were telling him, any sane pilot would be unsettled by the sight of a missile sticking out of his cockpit.

Seeing only a few other MiG's in the distance for the moment, Firetrack ignited his main turbines again, satisfied the heat levels of his main engine had dissipated enough. Just as he did, the sudden jolt of his acceleration caused the missile within his cockpit to explode. Suddenly feeling rather dizzy, he rapidly dropped altitude and used his anti-gravity engines to land rather than crash on the ground below.

Transforming into his robot mode, Firetrack's head and the back of his neck was smoking still from the missile's explosion. Exposing it directly to air should help his sudden headache to go away, he reasoned. Opening another tight-beam encrypted channel to Hornet, he gave an update. "Firetrack to Hornet. I think I got four, maybe five."

(EDIT: elevation setting fixed, as per General Havoc's point)

[Charon]

Shellshock's sensors turned skyward as he watched the aerial battle take place. They didn't have time to fool around with these headmasters. His auto-loaders had just replaced some of the first six he'd fired and so Shellshock picked out his remaining targets and fired three missiles. Then the old warbot picked up speed and headed directly towards Overload, either of their gestault forms would make this fight much faster. He openned his comm. on a tight channel too his brother in arms.

"Overload, I am closing on your position, should we prepare Overshock or Breachload for these Decepticons?"

Shellshock then openned a channel to his squad. "Aerial units, keep our skies and backs clear. The groundpounders will get to work on smashing stuff."

[LadyTevar]

"Hornet, how bad are you wounded?" Crimson asked worriedly, her Alt-mode roaring into the battle to 'cover Overload's back' as ordered. Her rapid approach threw off Decepticon targeting, lasers flashing past her or into the ground as she jinked her way inbound.

Once she was close enough, she deliberately skidded, transforming as she slid to roll to a crouch. Her laser and ion pistol appeared from subspace, just in time to lay down some very accurate coverfire for Overload.

[SirNitram]

"Thanks!" Overload grunted to Crimson, tossing his current 'weapon' at the largest Decepticon that had taken an interest in her. "Shellshock. Recommend we give them some fireworks as Breachload. We can put alot of firepower on their weakpoints and help Omega. Plus, if we get more ground-attack aircraft, nothing makes turbulance like the fusion cannons!"

[LadyTevar]

Crimson watched a Decepticon sail uncontrollably through the air and impact his buddy with force. "Have to love a big, strong bot..." she muttered, which reminded her... "Where's Stryke?"

[rhoenix]

Shellshock then opened a channel to his squad. "Aerial units, keep our skies and backs clear. The groundpounders will get to work on smashing stuff."

On the same channel, Firetrack replied - though the audio had...odd distortions to it. "Acknowledged, Shellshock."

His head steaming from the cold (and from the recently-exploded missile), Firetrack rose into the air, transformed into his jet form and quickly closed in on the nearest MiG.

[General Havoc]

Moments after Hornet's transmission, Firetrack jumped the remaining MiGs, blowing most of them out of the air with a fusillade of missiles and cannon fire. As his radar display cleared, and he slowly calmed down, Hornet keyed his radio again, his voice still soft and pained, but no longer as scared as it had been.

"I'm... I'm okay," he said, "I think. They... broke my hydraulics and... I think my canopy's cracked, but I shot three of them down with missiles and one with guns." It sounded fairly impressive, now that he had a chance to sit back and say it. He headed off what he assumed was going to be a lecture from someone about having been damaged. "They had... ground attack weapons, and they were gonna shoot at you guys. I think they're all gone now though..."

He circled back to keep near to the rest of the Autobots, as he tried to figure out what to do next.

[Charon]

"Understood Overload, coming in now." The massive siege tank came to as screeching of a hault as a several dozen ton treaded vehicle that was only going about 60 could and smoothly transformed back into Shellshock's robot mode. "Ready when you are."

[rhoenix]

As his radar display cleared, and he slowly calmed down, Hornet keyed his radio again, his voice still soft and pained, but no longer as scared as it had been.

"I'm... I'm okay," he said, "I think. They... broke my hydraulics and... I think my canopy's cracked, but I shot three of them down with missiles and one with guns." It sounded fairly impressive, now that he had a chance to sit back and say it. He headed off what he assumed was going to be a lecture from someone about having been damaged. "They had... ground attack weapons, and they were gonna shoot at you guys. I think they're all gone now though..."

As Firetrack was hunting down one of the few MiG stragglers, he replied to Hornet's thoughts. "That's pretty impressive, Hornet. You'll have to ask Wheeljack to see if he'll help you paint on victory emblems when you get home. Because you saw them before someone else noticed the danger, I'd say you get full credit here. As for the damage you took, take it easy for now - you'll be fine once we're finished and get home."

His digital targeting system locked onto the MiG straggler, and his pulse lasers flashed again.