AHN 'verse. Tatooine. Scavenger

[random_xtras]

"W... wait, you knew my creator?" Hot Shot winces as something Random's doing to his damaged internal components causes him to twitch, his movement making a soft scratching sound on the worn woven rug that he's laying on on the otherwise bare cave floor.

"I knew the mech who asked Primus for you," counters the massive sand-coloured stranger called Scavenger, not looking up from where he was using a torch to work a bend out of one of the younger mech's struts.

"Well, isn't that the same thing? Ow! Random, do you gotta poke there that many times?"

"No." Scavenger shakes his head and easily bends the metal in his hands back to shape. "Creators are the people who build your shell. Yours came off the assembly line."

"Way to make a guy feel unspecial," grumbles Hot Shot, but then notices that Kia is pouting at him for griping at Random and offers her a grin. "What was his name, Scavenger? What happened to him?"

"Optimus Prime. And he's dead. Nemesis Prime killed him a long long time ago." Scavenger offers the repaired strut to Random, his yellow optics calm but shadowed.

Comments

[random_xtras]

"No. I just mean you'd have to say it...." Hot Shot looks up at Scavenger uncertainly.

"It's not a matter of serving the badge, kid. You wear the badge to show what you believe," says the old mech as he goes to settle onto his skidplate by the door and look around the hanging that covers it.

"Oh... right. I... knew that." Hot Shot looks embarrassed, but then perks. "What badge do you wear, Scavenger? Are you a Rebel?"

"No." Scavenger doesn't look around. "I don't wear either badge."

[astrotechmech]

"Yeah, nobody's forcing me to say nothin'," he agrees with Scavenger. Unless they're torturing me on a table . . . and I hope that day never comes.

He finishes closing the panels, and then rises to his feet, stretching his legs out after having them inactive for so long.

[random_xtras]

"Oh...." Hot Shot looks at Scavenger's back, looking a little brain broken, then turns his attention back to Random as Kia jumps off him and hugs the repair mech. "So why did you decide to be a Rebel? It doesn't seem like the pay's very good."

"That joke wasn't funny," observes Kia softly, not moving from where she has her face hidden against her mentor's side.

[astrotechmech]

Random unconsciously falls into what has so recently become a routine: hugging Kia and rubbing either her arm or back. He feels kinda empty when she's not right there at his side, and it's not clear if he really knows why he feels empty until she's back yet.

The combination of the emptiness and his fear of performing "medical" procedures in general did nothing to really make the situation any better. His attempts at relieving the stress by engaging in the conversation was only a partial success, considering how he had to stop work to make a comment and then plunge back into the repairs again while all the while worrying about not messing up.

Needless to say, he is glad he finished those blasted repairs and that he can have Kia close to him.

Random gave Hot Shot a look that said he too was not amused with the joke. "The pay's actually pretty good until an Imperial ship comes and starts chasing down the ship you're assigned to! . . . I had friends, my own opinions, some say in what was happening and how things were done . . . And the Rebellion is much more tolerant about mistakes."

[random_xtras]

"Hey, I'm sorry, alright." Hot Shot looks unhappy as he sits up, but then pauses. "What do you mean?"

Kia, meanwhile, lets out a tiny sad sound as she thinks of the friends she got to meet back aboard the ship.

[astrotechmech]

Having enough standing for one moment, Random moves to move the temporarily conjoined 'bots to have a seat on the floor since that's where everyone else is. "About what?"

"Shhh, Kia," he soothes softly and pulls her closer to him.

[random_xtras]

"That last part you said." Hot Shot watches as Kia snuggles against the astrotech with her head on his legs, his optics showing his curiosity.

[astrotechmech]

Random is distracted with his rubbing for a few moments before answers. "I think it's pretty straight forward: You mess up--either through something being fixed wrong because they won't listen to you, you don't perform up to their high and mighty ignorant standards, etc.--and then something terrible happens to you. . . . No mercy usually."

[random_xtras]

"How do you know that's not just Rebel propaganda?" Hot Shot frowns, though there's no anger in the expression.

Kia, meanwhile, has stopped crying and is fading toward sleep.

[astrotechmech]

"Because there are stories . . . and from fairly reliable sources."

Sleep is better than being sad . . . as long as one's troubles don't come along for the ride.

[random_xtras]

"The storm's over." Scavenger calmly cuts across their conversation, causing Kia to twitch slightly.

[astrotechmech]

"Thank. Goodness."