randomplaces | ANH 'verse. Bespin Station. Jailbreak!

Smokescreen walks seemingly absent alongside the Autotroopers escorting Arcee down the hall, the officer among them still holding Arcee after sounds of gunfire from behind forced the officer to restrain her.

Although the gunfire sounded a few minutes ago, the air still felt tense among the Imperials.

So it is no wonder that all of the Imperials snap to attention when a CLANG! suddenly resounds from the direction they had come.

The officer's face quickly turns from a serious frown to bored when he sees the cause of the commotion, and he sneers, "Walls jumping out in front of you, Baron Administrator?"

Smokescreen, meanwhile, sheepishly rubs his face after peeling himself from the wall he had run into. "Heh, heh. Whoops. I must have missed a maintenance check," he replies, cheerfully, patting the wall so that the thunk! thunk! of his hand against the metal echoes down the hall.

"Uh huh," the officer replies with force civility that failed to conceal how stupid he thought the other bot was as he points two fingers in the direction they were heading in before they were so rudely interrupted. The message is clear: Ignore the clown and keep moving.

One Autotrooper, however, does not move right away, staring at Smokescreen blankly as is the Autotrooper way but still managing to be clearly skeptical.

"He's done this before," comes the hushed and quick explanation from another 'Trooper. "Ignore him."

There are no further incidents once they start moving again. At one point, the Imperial officer appears to have received a silent communication because he relaxes and lets Arcee walk free--if still escorted by the Autotroopers. He also shoots Smokescreen a smug and taunting look, as if he just figured out what Smokescreen had been attempting with the running into the wall and knew that the message he figures Smokescreen tried to send would now never reach Hot Shot.

As if to confirm the officer's suspicions, Smokescreen merely frowns worriedly in reply.

Soon, the group begins to head for a large intersection of several hallways, brightly lit, with large vent grates positioned high between the hallway entrances. A few creaks and pops can be heard, which go largely unnoticed as the group walks towards the intersection.

What happens once all are in the intersection, however, does not go unnoticed.

The vents overhead burst open, shapes emerging from the vents before anyone can really react and falling upon the Autotroopers like pouring rain, the sudden attack disorienting the Autotroopers even further.

But in the next instant, it's all over, and the Minicons from the vents stand triumphantly on the shoulders of the Autotroopers as the Autotroopers themselves are surrounded by armed mechs from the station's own security force.

Smokescreen walks over and shoves the Imperial officer in the direction of one of the guards, who proceeds to restrain and handcuff the officer. The officer, managing to recover from the shock of the sudden ambush slightly, shoots Smokescreen a dark look to which Smokescreen responds by waving his arms in a kind of carefree "what can you do?" shrug, his eyes shining with quiet and momentary smugness. Smokescreen then proceeds to disarm the Autotroopers as most of the Minicons jump back to the shoulders of the security team.

Smokescreen does not seem to skip a beat as three other Minicons jump and hold onto Smokescreen's back armor while he makes his rounds.

Smokescreen gives most of the guns to extra guards before turning to speak to the mech who appears to be in charge of the guards. "Take them to the South security tower, and keep it--"

He does not get a chance to go further.

"Death to the Empire!" comes the enthusiastic shout in Basic from one of the security team's Minicons.

Shh! comes the unison beeping as the closest Minicon hits the troublemaker upside the head and gives him a 'what the heck is wrong with you!?!' look.

"Quiet," Smokescreen finishes. "We don't want this to get out." Smokescreen gives the trouble-making Minicon a warning look.

The head security mech nods in understanding, and he has soon ushered the other guards and their Imperial prisoners down the hall.

One of the Minicons who had grabbed onto Smokescreen's back now sits on one of his shoulders, looking down the way the prisoners went until they're out of sight. [Liftor's with The Silver Lining. He'll met up with us once we take care of business.]

Smokescreen nods slowly as he moves to hand Arcee one of the remaining guns in his hand. Footsteps can be heard coming from one of the other hallways.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Arcee had been watching their backtrack after the little equipment haulers were out of sight, so she nearly jumps out of her brake shoes at sound of Smokescreen's challenge and whirls to point her gun at the cause of it. A firm small hand on her leg stops her short, and she frowns with surprise at the figure she sees.

And there is a mech that Arcee has not seen in what has probably felt like a long time: Random. Though it might be hard to tell at first that it is the mech since the mud--which he had tried in vain to wash off--made him more brown than blue.

The once-blue astrotech, characteristically, has hands up and is stammering unintelligibly as he looks for a symbol on the orange and blue mech before him while the same does to him--and neither have found what they're looking for.

"Random." Arcee relaxes just slightly as she steps forward. "Where's HotShot?"

Down at Minicon level, Rollbar is examining Random's muddy lower leg and chuckling quietly as he hears a soft tap from the vent on the wall above Random.

Smokescreen stops and looks over at Arcee before he can demand anything further of the poor, muddy astrotech.

Random, still trying to get over the shock of being accosted so, gives Smokescreen a furtive look before looking over at Arcee. He hesitates before saying, "Nemesis Prime."

And since he can't contain himself, "Where is she?"

"What??" All of Arcee's tension returns. "Is he trying to get killed?"

Then she yelps and nearly blows Murphy away as the little black Minicon pushes open the vent and drops down onto Random's shoulder to mew at him.

"It's what the crazy Seeker in the swamp was preparing him for!" Random says, defensively, "And you're avoiding the ques--Ah!" Random jumps as Murphy falls on him. "Get it off!"

Smokescreen raises an optic ridge at the antics. He turns to Arcee, asking the question he's had to only assume the answer to at this point, "You know this mech?"

"Calm down, you high-strung glitch!" snaps Arcee, then startles and blinks at Smokescreen.

"Yes," she says over a background of earnest Murphy talk. "He's my astrotech. One of them."

Rollbar's facepalming down there. Yes he is.

Smokescreen reaches over and takes Murphy off of Random's shoulder.

Random looks at the other mech warily, stepping back before trying to take the Minicon off his shoulder himself.

The astrotech is clearly not listening to anything Murphy is saying as he turns to Arcee and snaps, "I'm not your freaking astrotech. I work for you. There's a difference, Your Highness."

"Highness?" Smokescreen asks. "So Jetfire's 'Princess' wasn't a pet name for you? Or just an inside joke?"

It's Arcee's turn to facepalm. "What rock did you crawl out from under? I'm the..." Her face falls as she remembers, and her voice goes quieter. "I was Senator to Alderaan. Councillor Tracks was my mentor."

Then she turns to Random and snaps right back. "You're also a jerk! Now will you keep your misclocked voice down before someone decides to start shooting at us again???"

"There's no one else around right now," says a soft voice from overhead. "Please stop yelling at Random. Random, you're not listening to Murphy."

Smokescreen appears sheepish and shrugs. "Uh, I've heard of him?"

Random looks like he is about to take exception to that when the soft voice speaks. He looks up quickly. "Kia."

The little face, so well-remembered, breaks into a smile as their eyes meet. "Hi. Murphy's trying to give you a report."

Murphy's still chattering away, as a matter of fact. He might have hit the end and started over.

Arcee is also looking up, the relief in her expression unmistakable as she sees that the youngling is alright. Her optics, however, are dark again with remembered pain and loss.

"Kia." Random doesn't seem to be thinking about anything else.

Smokescreen sees the obvious height problem. "Want a hand down, Kia?"

Pale blue eyes glance over toward the brawny bot, and the delicate nose seems to wrinkle. But then she's chuckling very very softly as a comment comes from Smokescreen's shield.

Smokescreen lets go of the shield and it breaks up into its component Minicons. They scramble back onto his back and he reaches up to help her step down.

Random clearly does not like this development, but as an astrotech, he is too small to reach her himself--in root mode anyway.

ANH 'verse. Bespin Station. Jailbreak!

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