[TFP] Homeward Bound
Oct. 19th, 2020 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Homeward Bound
Universe: TFP, Pre-Canon
Characters: Hound
Rating: K+
Description: Hound wakes to a different Cybertron than the one he was guarding.
Commission for calledunknownn.
Hound was certain his chronometer had to be off.
Surely he hadn’t been in stasis for the better part of a century!? Surely he hadn’t taken that hard of a blow?
Everything hurt, especially his head. He ached. He was battered and dented, and low on energon. He rose, joints creaking from disuse, in desperate need of lubrication everywhere. Bits of debris sloughed from his frame.
He popped a ration pack out of subspace and mechanically chewed it. Rubble blocked the way forward, there was only back. He’d been lying there so long, the dust had time to settle. There were no lights, not even the emergency runners.
Cybertron was ominously quiet.
Hound’s communicator summoned static and nothing else. There were messages in his queue, but he couldn’t access them. He couldn’t tap into the newsnet.
Hound cut on his headlights, the pale glow illuminating what his sensors had already told him -- disuse and abandonment. He did, however, spy a maintenance hatch.
He climbed up, forced it open with his shoulder, and emerged in an empty maintenance closet. Here, too, everything was coated in dust, the faintest trace of munitions clinging to the air, and beyond that, scorched energon and discharged plasma.
There’d been a battle.
Hound stumbled into dark streets, buildings lying in ruins, battered frames littering the roads, lying in pools of dried energon, their faces twisted with horror. Nothing stirred, not even a turborat.
His communicator still rang static. He reached for his commanding officer and received dead air. His chronometer continued to inform him of the decades which had passed.
He walked for hours, finding only destruction and emptiness. The barracks were a blackened pit, reduced to rubble. The only towers standing had been so riddled with artillery, Hound was impressed they hadn’t crumbled. The Autobot base was much the same.
In the wreckage, he found a datapad. It was battered, the charge long expended, but he plugged it into his systems and ex-vented relief when it sputtered to life in his hands. There was no active connection, but there were stored materials on here -- the last of the orders issued from high command.
The Autobots were gone from Cybertron. Truthfully, the Decepticons had as well, due to a lack of energon to sustain them and the war. The Autobot survivors had fled on a massive spaceship -- the Ark -- to galaxies unknown. Of the Decepticons, the Autobot brief said nothing, but given how dark and abandoned Cybertron felt, Hound was certain they’d gone, too.
He had a choice, he supposed, but it wasn’t much of a choice at all.
Hound tucked the datapad into a storage compartment and headed for the nearest transport hub. He didn’t know what he’d find, but luck or Primus both must have been on his side, because tucked in a solitary hangar was a small starship, big enough for two. He didn’t know how it had escaped the barrage or the looters, but he wasn’t one to ignore a spot of luck either.
He spent a day gathering supplies from the rubble and the wreckage, and only once did he have to hide from a surveillance drone, the Decepticon symbol stamped proudly on the hull. After that, he freed the spaceship from the hanger, and said one last goodbye to Cybertron before he fled the planet.
If the Decepticon surveillance noticed him, they didn’t care enough to give chase. He was coasting through the stars at a remarkable pace, his fuel gauge at maximum, without a single destination in mind.
The ship was called the Eclipse, and apparently, it was of an experimental line meant for deep-space exploration by two-mech teams. The war pre-empted their first launch, and so they’d gathered dust in the hangars. They weren’t equipped for battle, but for survival, and they could weather the starhops with ease.
The Eclipse was perfect for Hound’s needs, though he eyed the empty co-pilot’s seat with a soft sigh.
He was a scout. He was accustomed to loneliness. It was always with the understanding that he had friends and family waiting for him, however. Now, he didn’t know what he would find, if he’d see another friendly Cybertronian again.
The universe was a vast place, largely unchartered, though the Eclipse came equipped with a fairly detailed star map -- as up to date as Cybertron had been before the apex of the war.
Hound let himself float in the vastness of space for a while, drifting past astral bodies and interesting planets, while he soaked up every bit of information he’d gathered, and tried to recover a century’s worth of events. The war escalating to the point it had forced Cybertron to a position of needing to heal itself was shocking, but not a surprise.
There was something rotten in Cybertron, and it fed the seeds of the rebellion. Megatron’s way was not the way to clear the rot, but he was stubborn, and so, the war escalated.
Hound sighed, grieving for the planet he called home, and wishing the datapad could tell him about his friends -- whether they’d survived or not.
He tucked it away and focused on the proverbial horizon. The Autobots were out in the universe somewhere. They’d scattered in all directions according to the data. Surely he would find someone.
Surely.
It was another decade, and more than four dozen planets and waystations and star systems, before the Eclipse started to dip and sputter at him. Hound was not an engineer, and while he’d done what he could to keep the starship functional, he’d long run out of creds to hire an alien engineer, and the Eclipse was on its last gasps.
His next landing would likely be his last.
The planet on the viewscreen in front of him was a blue and green marble floating a habitable distance from the sun it orbited. Shifting atmospheric masses suggested it held a rich ecosystem, and there was enough electronic detritus orbiting it to confirm the presence of an fairly advanced civilization. His sensors picked up chatter, though he didn’t understand the language, confident his universal translator would eventually parse it out.
It would have to be home.
The landing was rough, but he was proud of the Eclipse, proud of his temporary home as he managed to set it down in a lush valley of green vegetation and a rainbow of colorful plants. There were mountains to either side, and tall trees, and space enough to feel well hidden. The Eclipse’s stealth mode -- for secret observation and study -- came in handy.
It might never fly again, but many of the systems functioned just fine. It would make a decent home.
Hound spent a half-dozen of the planet’s days digging into the mountains, concealing the Eclipse from the casual observer. None of the planet’s sapient residents -- bipedal, flesh-creatures -- stumbled upon him, but many of the non-sapient fauna wander into his periphery.
Quadrupedal creatures with horns upon their heads. Smaller furry things with bushy tails. Tiny buzzing insects -- Hound had seen many variations of arthropods on his journey through the cosmos. One by one, he learned their names as well as he learned the dominant language on this land mass -- deer, squirrel, bumblebee, mosquito.
The locals had created a global computer network, and through it, Hound discovered a means to travel undisturbed. He picked one of their more common vehicles, and downloaded the specs. It felt a little odd, the first time he shifted into it, but eventually he settled into the new shape, and found a road. He used his hologram system to create a human facsimile so no one would be disturbed by a driver-less vehicle.
It would be an interesting place to live. The solar still would be enough to feed him, and barring the need for medical maintenance, Hound supposed he would survive just fine, if but a little lonely.
He kept the broadcast going on the Eclipse just in case. Someday, an Autobot or a Neutral might wander into this star system, and might pick up on the signal.
It was a faint hope.
For now, this planet, this Earth would have to do.
****
Universe: TFP, Pre-Canon
Characters: Hound
Rating: K+
Description: Hound wakes to a different Cybertron than the one he was guarding.
Commission for calledunknownn.
Hound was certain his chronometer had to be off.
Surely he hadn’t been in stasis for the better part of a century!? Surely he hadn’t taken that hard of a blow?
Everything hurt, especially his head. He ached. He was battered and dented, and low on energon. He rose, joints creaking from disuse, in desperate need of lubrication everywhere. Bits of debris sloughed from his frame.
He popped a ration pack out of subspace and mechanically chewed it. Rubble blocked the way forward, there was only back. He’d been lying there so long, the dust had time to settle. There were no lights, not even the emergency runners.
Cybertron was ominously quiet.
Hound’s communicator summoned static and nothing else. There were messages in his queue, but he couldn’t access them. He couldn’t tap into the newsnet.
Hound cut on his headlights, the pale glow illuminating what his sensors had already told him -- disuse and abandonment. He did, however, spy a maintenance hatch.
He climbed up, forced it open with his shoulder, and emerged in an empty maintenance closet. Here, too, everything was coated in dust, the faintest trace of munitions clinging to the air, and beyond that, scorched energon and discharged plasma.
There’d been a battle.
Hound stumbled into dark streets, buildings lying in ruins, battered frames littering the roads, lying in pools of dried energon, their faces twisted with horror. Nothing stirred, not even a turborat.
His communicator still rang static. He reached for his commanding officer and received dead air. His chronometer continued to inform him of the decades which had passed.
He walked for hours, finding only destruction and emptiness. The barracks were a blackened pit, reduced to rubble. The only towers standing had been so riddled with artillery, Hound was impressed they hadn’t crumbled. The Autobot base was much the same.
In the wreckage, he found a datapad. It was battered, the charge long expended, but he plugged it into his systems and ex-vented relief when it sputtered to life in his hands. There was no active connection, but there were stored materials on here -- the last of the orders issued from high command.
The Autobots were gone from Cybertron. Truthfully, the Decepticons had as well, due to a lack of energon to sustain them and the war. The Autobot survivors had fled on a massive spaceship -- the Ark -- to galaxies unknown. Of the Decepticons, the Autobot brief said nothing, but given how dark and abandoned Cybertron felt, Hound was certain they’d gone, too.
He had a choice, he supposed, but it wasn’t much of a choice at all.
Hound tucked the datapad into a storage compartment and headed for the nearest transport hub. He didn’t know what he’d find, but luck or Primus both must have been on his side, because tucked in a solitary hangar was a small starship, big enough for two. He didn’t know how it had escaped the barrage or the looters, but he wasn’t one to ignore a spot of luck either.
He spent a day gathering supplies from the rubble and the wreckage, and only once did he have to hide from a surveillance drone, the Decepticon symbol stamped proudly on the hull. After that, he freed the spaceship from the hanger, and said one last goodbye to Cybertron before he fled the planet.
If the Decepticon surveillance noticed him, they didn’t care enough to give chase. He was coasting through the stars at a remarkable pace, his fuel gauge at maximum, without a single destination in mind.
The ship was called the Eclipse, and apparently, it was of an experimental line meant for deep-space exploration by two-mech teams. The war pre-empted their first launch, and so they’d gathered dust in the hangars. They weren’t equipped for battle, but for survival, and they could weather the starhops with ease.
The Eclipse was perfect for Hound’s needs, though he eyed the empty co-pilot’s seat with a soft sigh.
He was a scout. He was accustomed to loneliness. It was always with the understanding that he had friends and family waiting for him, however. Now, he didn’t know what he would find, if he’d see another friendly Cybertronian again.
The universe was a vast place, largely unchartered, though the Eclipse came equipped with a fairly detailed star map -- as up to date as Cybertron had been before the apex of the war.
Hound let himself float in the vastness of space for a while, drifting past astral bodies and interesting planets, while he soaked up every bit of information he’d gathered, and tried to recover a century’s worth of events. The war escalating to the point it had forced Cybertron to a position of needing to heal itself was shocking, but not a surprise.
There was something rotten in Cybertron, and it fed the seeds of the rebellion. Megatron’s way was not the way to clear the rot, but he was stubborn, and so, the war escalated.
Hound sighed, grieving for the planet he called home, and wishing the datapad could tell him about his friends -- whether they’d survived or not.
He tucked it away and focused on the proverbial horizon. The Autobots were out in the universe somewhere. They’d scattered in all directions according to the data. Surely he would find someone.
Surely.
It was another decade, and more than four dozen planets and waystations and star systems, before the Eclipse started to dip and sputter at him. Hound was not an engineer, and while he’d done what he could to keep the starship functional, he’d long run out of creds to hire an alien engineer, and the Eclipse was on its last gasps.
His next landing would likely be his last.
The planet on the viewscreen in front of him was a blue and green marble floating a habitable distance from the sun it orbited. Shifting atmospheric masses suggested it held a rich ecosystem, and there was enough electronic detritus orbiting it to confirm the presence of an fairly advanced civilization. His sensors picked up chatter, though he didn’t understand the language, confident his universal translator would eventually parse it out.
It would have to be home.
The landing was rough, but he was proud of the Eclipse, proud of his temporary home as he managed to set it down in a lush valley of green vegetation and a rainbow of colorful plants. There were mountains to either side, and tall trees, and space enough to feel well hidden. The Eclipse’s stealth mode -- for secret observation and study -- came in handy.
It might never fly again, but many of the systems functioned just fine. It would make a decent home.
Hound spent a half-dozen of the planet’s days digging into the mountains, concealing the Eclipse from the casual observer. None of the planet’s sapient residents -- bipedal, flesh-creatures -- stumbled upon him, but many of the non-sapient fauna wander into his periphery.
Quadrupedal creatures with horns upon their heads. Smaller furry things with bushy tails. Tiny buzzing insects -- Hound had seen many variations of arthropods on his journey through the cosmos. One by one, he learned their names as well as he learned the dominant language on this land mass -- deer, squirrel, bumblebee, mosquito.
The locals had created a global computer network, and through it, Hound discovered a means to travel undisturbed. He picked one of their more common vehicles, and downloaded the specs. It felt a little odd, the first time he shifted into it, but eventually he settled into the new shape, and found a road. He used his hologram system to create a human facsimile so no one would be disturbed by a driver-less vehicle.
It would be an interesting place to live. The solar still would be enough to feed him, and barring the need for medical maintenance, Hound supposed he would survive just fine, if but a little lonely.
He kept the broadcast going on the Eclipse just in case. Someday, an Autobot or a Neutral might wander into this star system, and might pick up on the signal.
It was a faint hope.
For now, this planet, this Earth would have to do.
