Fic: Touching Atmosphere
Title: Touching Atmosphere
Characters: Crosshairs
Verse: Bayverse
Genres: Action, adventure
Disclaimer: Not mine as usual.
Summary: Crosshairs just really hates Seekers
Crosshairs hated Seekers.
Kinda hard not to, when everything wrong with his life began and came back to them. Oh, so the Omicron colony was being invaded by the Ejoornians? And thanks to senate in-fighting and politics, no aerial forces could be deployed over there to fight off the invaders? Well, not to worry. Lord of the bright ideas, Commander Rapidfire would just love to test out a new concept he had for the battlefield. New type of troops, meant for flanking and pacifying ground forces. Paratroopers! What a fragging great idea that was. Kinda backwards if you thought about it. They already had mecha able to transform themselves into air vehicles, troops able to parachute in were...kinda redundant.
Extremely redundant. Crosshairs wasn't one of the few remaining living examples of his frame type for nothing. Sure, paratroops had been effective addition to the tactics used against the Ejoornians, but that was only because the enemy forces were primarily land based.
Decepticon forces were primarily aerials. Paratroopers were just great big dead targets in the sky for them. Thanks a lot Rapidfire. Thanks so much. Should have just shoved that bright idea back in its box and fought harder to get some damn Seekers assigned to ya problem. Or, if you were going through the whole effort of actually sparking some new soldiers, just get Seekers sparked. Except Vos tended to have a tight grip on them and blah, blah, blah, Crosshairs didn't really know much about Cybertronian politics since he spent most of his time deployed off-planet but apparently it was easier just to requisition experimental soldiers.
So yeah. Crosshairs hated Seekers. Everything would have been better if he'd built with wings instead of controlled falling devices. His existence was owed to Seekers and his life probably was just as easily going to be taken by one of them too.
Just not today.
"Are you insane, solider?" the pilot barked as he gaped at the now dead comms system, still sparking thanks to the bullets that had just been introduced to them. "What are you-?"
The pilot turned round and his voice died at the sight of Crosshair's SMG pointed at his forehead. Behind Crosshairs though, the rest of his cohort had pulled their own weapons and had them levelled straight at Crosshairs's head. "Easy there," he growled. "Nobody do anything stupid."
"The only one doing anything stupid is you, Crosshairs. What the slag are you doing?"
Crosshairs peered past the pilot, at the dogfights going on around the sky. Autobots and Decepticons hurtling through the air. Lot more purple faces than Bots, though and the pilot had been refusing to take them closer or lower. Somewhere far, far, far below was the base they were supposed to be taking. Too heavily fortified for a frontal assault. So someone had the bright idea to take to the air and had scrambled all the air forces nearby. Unfortunately, Crosshairs's unit had been part of those nearby forces. "Not jumping," he sneered. "We do that, it's suicide. Look at the number of Seekers they got."
Like he thought, that got them to shut up. They'd been good. Oh, so good. Obey all the stupid orders handed down to them from commanders that no idea how to use the forces they'd been handed, watched their numbers steadily drop. They were good little soldiers, they had to be. Hadn't been sparked for anything else. War born, war built. But this was too much. An entire airborne unit had jumped in conditions like this only a couple of cycles ago. No survivors.
Crosshairs had had enough.
And by the looks of things here, so had his frame brothers.
"Gotta a plan, Cross?" that was Overflight, dry and calm like they weren't up slag alley.
The paratrooper smiled coldly. "Just one." He shoved the pilot from his chair, ignoring the mech's protests and sent the drop ship in for a spiral. "Survive."
The pilot, Lightwind or Blightwind or whatever his designation was, shrieked. Crosshairs couldn't see it but his frame brothers had given him cool looks before settling back into their seats. One by the cockpit yanked the pilot away who was fumbling for a gun, a mad attempt to regain control of the drop ship. Apparently, his brothers had decided that there was no difference whether they jumped or whether they allowed Crosshairs to try to fly the ship. The paratrooper actually hadn't flown anything outside the simulations, but hey, he figured, nothing motivates you to get it right on your first go than almost certain death.
The drop ship plunged through the wild aerial foray. At least three Decepticon seekers broke off and pursued them. ::I've got guns:: Steelwire murmured over their battle comm channel.
::Good:: Crosshairs grunted as he rolled and juked the drop ship out of the way of the tracking laser fire. A few hits managed to land, the ship pitched and it sounded like something exploded, but he still had control. There was a shudder, a deep vibration as Steelwire started up the shooting back at their pursuers. Beneath him, he could see that base growing larger and closer. The anti-air turrets had been taken out during an earlier bombing run but the Decepticon forces had gathered so fiercely in the air that the Autobots hadn't been able to land their own troops.
Well, Crosshairs was about to fix all that. They were supposed to be game changers after all.
"Pull up," a voice moaned sickly behind him. Apparently Blighty or Lighty had peered into the cockpit again. "You're going too fast, pull up."
Crosshairs smirked. "Ah, Lightwind, glad you could join me again." He released the controls, the ship dipped before Crosshairs pushed the pilot back into his seat again and Blightwind took control, frantically trying to correct their plunge. "This is where we get off." Crosshairs punched the pilot amicably. "Not up there."
His frame brothers had the drop ship door open and several had already gone. Wind roared and the air screamed as jets flew through byand tried to murder each other. He could hear the sound of gunfire, explosions. It was a hurricane, a relentless storm of energy, where conditions changed in less than astrosecond. And he'd be jumping into the heart of it, the center of this death storm.
Eh.
Whatever.
Wasn't like he had any better options right now. Crosshairs didn't think the drop ship was gonna make the trip back home. Blightwind was probably going to go down with his ship.
But at least this way, they had a fighting chance. None of them would have made it if they'd obeyed the pilot's orders. Crosshairs sauntered up to the hollowing wind, past Overflight still waiting for him. He peered down at the distant ground, then simply tipped forward and-
Fell.