#slippedintoasarchasm

Heh…I’m in.

What’s that? You want one to finally look half as good as I do? 

A mass-messaged virtual flier pings at the firewalls of dozens of mechs and femmes—names and commlink codes Hotwire has meticulously collected over the duration of her impromptu stay on Earth and subsequent discovery of the multiverse.  Those who choose to accept the neutral’s message recieve this:

Ladies and gentlemen, mechs and femmes, ‘Bots and ‘Cons of all build and age, the crew of the Covenant, the singlemost well-stocked trade vessel in the multiverse, will be setting up in Kaon for the duration of the Summer Solstice party!

We have technology, medical supplies, raw materials, highgrade and cygs, datapads of all types, trinkets, oddities, bits, and bobs; anything you could possibly want.  Just ask—chances are, we got it.

Everything comes at a price of course, and we will accept anything of value; items, energon, and we’ll even accept assistance repairing our ship for trade.

Our location is highlighted on the map of Kaon at the bottom of this flier.

Questions and comments should be directed to Captain Hotwire, Comm Code 44-537-981.

Looking forward to trading with you,

~The crew of the Covenant.

- - - - -

((As the opening paragraph states, I’m tagging this with the URLs of everyone I follow and who follows me.  Reblog and/or message me if you have any intention on visiting the Hotwire and her crew during the Solstice Party.))

You think I’d let you escape now that I’ve got you in my sights?

No, but why would I want to escape you anyway? B]

blue-and-black-hero replied to your post: Sometimes life gets really tough, and I think...

If you left, the universe would be missing a good chunk of it’s swag. And who else would be as fabulous, have awesome musical tastes, or have the best pick-up lines?

Thank you for your kind words Riou. When I die of unnatural causes, (Presumably Unicron or something) Please donate my swag to the less fortunate. I left all my best pick up lines in a text file named "Excellent Pick Up Lines." 

flying-knight replied to your post: Sometimes life gets really tough, and I think...

I’d be rather upset if you disappeared, Clich. I adore your company, my friend.

((I'm sorry that this is so long, I've just never really gotten to introduce the rest of the Covenant's crew and Slipstream's gonna be scouting with these people; that and I have to establish the setting.  I promise the others won't be so long.))

- - - 

The heat in the valley where the mangled body of the once-grand Covenant had wrecked was harsh and dry.  It chipped paint, warped mesh, and wore at a 'bot's cooling systems like sandpaper on wood.  It was especially bad at this time of day, when the sun was at it's peak and shade was almost nonexistent.  

It was awful.  

Unbearable. 

The heat on the cliffs above was worse.

"Sonuva scrapheap, I hate this place," Crankshaft groused over the whirring of the companies' cooling fans, taking refuge in the small amount shade a nearby ledge provided.  He sat cross-legged and picked at his ankle hinges with sharp fingers, flicking away rocks and stalks of the tall grass that the grounders had had to wade through to get to the cliff face.  It didn't help that the mechanic was the last one to arrive.  "I hate it so much."

The rest of the Covenant's crew had found their own small patches of shade to rest in as they waited for their captain and their inventory clerk to arrive.  Their seeker guest had gotten the best spot under the Primus-only-knows-how-but-it-was flourishing tree rooted where the cliff face met the ground; Blindside, ever the gentlemech in spite of his brutish build, had made sure of it.  It was nice, but the femme could practically feel Crankshaft's envious gaze of her spot boring into her finish.

"Don't mind him too much," the ship's medic, another seeker femme by the designation 'Echo' said to Slipstream from her spot a couple meters away with a nudge of her helm towards the mechanic.  "He's a royal grump and he likes to complain--a lot--but he's a hard worker and a good mech.  He'll have your back."

"If I don't melt first," he grumbled, now prying debris from his pede's traction padding.  "Lucky frickin' fliers..."

"Oh, I don't wanna hear it!" a voice cracked from a ledge at least ten meters above the rest of the party.  The team's scout, a Harley two-wheeler called Thunderlane, peered over the edge of his shade spot and glared down at Crankshaft.  "You get to cozy up in the ship all day!  I'm the one who's gotta get all the grime 'n slag cleaned outta every nook and cranny of my frame day in and day out lookin' fer all the bits and bobs of the ship that you need to do your job!  So can it!"

Blindside grinned at the ever-brazen youngest's rant.  "He has a point, Cranky."

Whatever retort Crankshaft had for either of them was cut short when the low roar of jets and the pulsing thrums of helicopter blades suddenly neared the group.  With a rush of air and the chhnk-chhnk-CHHNK of two transformation sequences, Hotwire and Stockpile each made a three-point landing before the team, the large mech dropping a large pile of rucksacks to the ground as he straightened. 

The captain lost no time in addressing her crew as they stood.

"Alright, femmes 'n mechs," she barked, beginning a smooth, slow pace in front of her crew-mates and seeker volunteer, heel struts clicking out a sharp, even staccato against the red sandstone and sparse clumps of grass.  "Today's delta engine recovery mission has taken a change, an' a volatile one at that."  She stopped and nodded to Stockpile, who stepped past the femme and gave a quick salute to his teammates.

"I had finished cataloging the rest of the storage units which had not been knocked out of the ship during the crash today," the hefty seeker explained, standing stock-straight in front of his comrades, servos behind his back and broad wings pressed down and flat, "when it came to my attention that we are missing unit Omega-7."

There was a gasp or two from the group, but what mostly filled the air were curses and groans.

Hotwire made optic contact with their purple seeker guest.  "We got a set 'a storage units labeled as Omega units," she explained.  "They all contain the most dangerous scrap we got in stock, and number seven is by far the worst one we coulda lost."  

"The bioweapons," Echo said hollowly.

"It's also the very smallest one we have," Stockpile pitched in, gesturing to the looming cliffs above them.  "Which is why we need so many eyes in the sky to find it."  

"It's usually just two or three of us who go scouting out units," Blindside told Slipstream.

Hotwire approached the seeker with an apologetic look to her faceplates and guilt lining her energy field.

….