2002

[mendanddefend_archive]

There's no sense of time passing. That's kind of the point of stasis lock, of course, but it still puzzles Bob a little that there's no sense of transition at all, no state change that he can detect. It's only by the rise and fall of the storage space walls that he can tell when he's going in and out of stasis lock.

"How long has it been this time?" he says blandly as soon as the walls drop again.

Comments

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Another ten years," says the avatar, which doesn't appear to have changed much either. "And I got a confirmation on that estimate. We've only got five years left before we hit Earth."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob perks up at that. "Have you heard back from Bumblebee yet?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Nothing concrete," says Ironhide. "But he's close enough to tap into the Earth computer systems and start learning the language. Even if he can't speak any of it."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"He can't?" Bob frowns. "Why not? Do you need some special upgrade to speak other languages or something?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"No," says Ironhide grimly. "Bumblebee can't speak at all. He can understand just fine, but his voice capacitor's been damaged worse than Ratchet knows how to fix."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob looks stunned. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know--wait, how does he talk to you guys then?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"He has to use a direct digital link. After what Megatron did, he can't get anything more than a couple of squeaks and squeals out if he tries to speak aloud, but he's just fine at sending and receiving data directly."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob winces. "That's gonna make it hard for him to make contact with people on Earth, I can tell you that right now. Humans don't have 'direct digital links,' in case you hadn't figured that out."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"He seems to think he's got an alternative lined up. Once he lands on Earth, he should be able to sample human communications through their radio broadcasts and play them back."

Ironhide sounds dubious about this, but 'Bee always had a reputation for ingenuity, so he's willing to wait and see.

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob immediately thinks of Mike the TV, and starts snickering. "That'll be something to see."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Long as he doesn't tap into the wrong broadcast and get us into a war with the humans. The one we've got already's more than enough."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"Copy and paste that," says Bob. A beat. "So was he able to pass on any other information about Earth?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"They've got some kind of presence on the next planet out," says Ironhide. "Mechanical probe or something. He's gonna investigate it before he puts down on Earth proper, see if it's anything like Ghost-1."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if it was?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Depends. It's been thirty years since they launched Ghost-1. Who knows what they might've figured out from Megatron by now? It could blow up in his face, or report back to home base before he could stop it. If it's just Earth tech, he's not in as much danger."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"You're sure you can tell the difference?"

It's not accusatory, just curious.

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Pretty sure," says Ironhide. "A bad copy of a Cybertronian piece of work sticks out like an un-insulated circuit relay."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Now there's an analogy Bob can relate to. He cringes. "Point taken. So, uh, what's the plan after that?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Get a fix on some good locations to come down and start the search on the planet," says Ironhide. "Can't really pick the energy signature out from orbit, but we don't want to land on an undeveloped continent if we don't have to."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"I don't think there are any undeveloped continents," says Bob. "Except Antarctica, and it's kinda hard to miss."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"That's a start," says Ironhide. "What's this Antarctica like?"

[mendanddefend_archive]

"It's a big flat hunk of ice around the planet's south pole. Most of it isn't even land, just floating ice. No plants, almost no animals, and the only humans there are scientists on outposts."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

Ironhide grunts. "Bad place to land, anyway," he says. "Going from the heat of re-entry to that kind of cold too quickly'll put a mech in stasis lock no matter what his temperature tolerance is."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"Humans don't deal with cold very well, from what I gather," says Bob. "Anyway, pretty much anywhere else on any other land mass on the planet should get you close to some kind of human presence. They're all over the place."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Optimus says we're supposed to do whatever possible to avoid giving the humans trouble," says Ironhide. "Copy their vehicles, find out if any of them have an idea where the Allspark is, and protect them from any Decepticons throwing their weight around- but nothing that would do them harm."