ANH 'verse. Bespin Station. Jailbreak!

[astrotechmech]

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.

Comments

[random_xtras]

"I hear something." Kia stiffens at the same time as the Minicons on the floor all turn to look the way that the group has come.

"What is it?" Arcee lifts her gun and looks that way as well.

Makeshift just scowls and looks at Smokescreen.

[astrotechmech]

"Our cue to get out of here," Smokescreen says, taking the piece of equipment Liftor took from a console of the wall and attaches it to his audio as Random looks at him with a puzzled look.

//Cloud City. This is Smokescreen. Listen up and listen well,// the orange and blue mech's voice rings over the intercom throughout the station. // The slimeball Imperials aren't going to keep their word about leaving us alone, despite what they had us do, so I'm issuing evacuation order 1-1-3-8. Repeat, evacuation order 1-1-3-8. On-duty staff report to your supervisors and off-duty staff report to your residential managers. Repeat, on-duty staff report to your supervisors and off-duty staff report to your residential managers. Now get out of here . . . and may Primus be with you.//

True to Kia's sensors, Imperial Autotroopers rounded a corner and started firing at them as Smokescreen made his announcement. Smokescreen motioned for everyone to get behind him if possible, or to find cover as he started firing at the Autotroopers with his gun.

Random took Kia and hid in the doorway, out of sight of the Autotroopers as they started firing.

As Smokescreen moved to detach the equipment he had used to patch into the intercomm after his speech, however, a trio of voices start demanding things of him over his personal line.

// Smokescreen, you and Liftor aren't seriously considering taking the fallout of this, are you? Don't be so stupid. // a rational voice exclaims.

// Sir! We can't let the Imperials get this station! Let's blow it up! // says another that was more enthusiastic.

// I don't think we should go as far as to blow it up, but I agree that we can't leave this station as it is. We need to sabotage it. // the third voice says.

[random_xtras]

Arcee is only too happy to use Smokescreen as cover while she cuts loose a deadly barrage at the incoming enemies. Her actions are mirrored by Rollbar and Comettor, while Sparkplug and Murphy join Makeshift and Random in ensuring Kia's safety. The air is full of sizzling bolts and the language of excited Minicons. Some of which is coming out in Basic.

[astrotechmech]

Random doesn't like all this gunfire, struggling to keep calm, but at least the Minicons were watching their language around Kia?

Somewhat figuratively aloof from the battle, Smokescreen flips a switch on the device to keep the conversation from going over the intercom and answers the less rational voices first. // Unless you can guarantee that everyone is off, we're not blowing up anything. It's better to let the Imperials take this city than to lose our people due to over-eagerness. And even if all of our people are off, you still have Hot Shot somewhere on this station. He's got enough on his plate dealing with Nemesis Prime. I'm not going to add to his worries by having a station blow up on him. Sabotage, maybe. I think it's more important to get out. . . . Now, as for whether or not Liftor and I are staying . . . //

Smokescreen trails off and looks at the mechs and femmes fighting the Autotroopers who are quickly being dealt with. He catches the glance of Liftor, who was included on the line, and sees him nod. Liftor had been thinking what he was. // If they'll have me and my gang, we'll be going with Arcee in the Falcon and getting them somewhere safe. Does that answer your question?//

//Yes, sir, it does,// the ration voice responds, sounding pleased that his boss and his Minicon weren't going to be melodramatic by "going down with his station" after all.

// Good. Now, make sure everyone gets off, // Smokescreen snarks.

To which, he gets a // Sir, yes, sir! // in response before the line goes dead.

Smokescreen takes off the piece of equipment off of his audio, which Liftor replaces, and he turns to see that this skirmish as also ended.

"It looks like we're about done here," Smokescreen says, before he turns to Random, who looks a bit shell-shocked. "We you able to open the door?"

Random shakes himself out of shock. "Uh, no," he says pointing at a port in the wall, "because that's a power socket, not a computer terminal." Random gives Smokescreen a look that seems to say, 'What kind of idiot do you take me for?'

[random_xtras]

"Despite what the urban legends say, you can't get anything from those except a headache," says Makeshift, partially distracted by having Sparkplug pat his leg.

"We have to hurry," says Kia, lifting her face from Random's plating just enough to say.

And Arcee's now looking a little confused, her expression similar to talking on coms, but more unfocused.

[astrotechmech]

"Right," Smokescreen nods in agreement with Kia and points down the hall. "That way."

Smokescreen ushers them on ahead as he covers the retreat. Once almost everyone has gone in the direction he pointed, he notices that Arcee has stayed behind and drags her along as he uses the shield to keep the blasts from hitting the others.

He leaves the shield with Arcee again as he moves up to open the door that leads directly to the platform to find this one is also locked.

The Autotroopers were nothing but thorough right now.

"Locked again," Smokescreen grumbles. "But it looks like this one has a computer terminal socket."

"If you cover me, I should be able to get it," Random says, as he shifts how he's holding Kia's legs and moves to extract the cable he needs to connect to the computer.

Smokescreen becomes distracted as more Autotroopers rear their ugly heads, and he once more takes the shield from Arcee.

Random, meanwhile, has been remind that he had a dip in the swamp as his taking out of his cable has resulted in more mud on the floor. Random looks down at it and figuratively dot dot dots. He makes a motion like a human clearing his throat and asks, "Uh, Makeshift, you wouldn't happen to have a rag, would you?"

[random_xtras]

The older astrotech looks toward him, already pulling out an absorbent rag, then beeps surprise and sidesteps a fleeing bug. "What the great greasy gears??"

Kia is silent now, though her worry and fear have been joined by wonder and a touch of youthful amusement as she watches that crawler skitter back the way they'd come.

"[Hoo boy,]" comments Murphy, also watching the critter.

[astrotechmech]

Random appears very sheepish and self-conscious as he shifts his weight under the attention that the bug has indirectly gotten him. "I'd explain, but . . ." He trails off since he doesn't think that mentioning how he almost got eaten would be an appropriate thing to talk about around Kia.

He is, however, spared from the explanation as a turquoise Minicon with a face mask covering the lower half of his face shows up in the hall behind them on his way to his evacuation meeting spot.

[Duuuuuuuuuuude!] the turquoise Minicon exclaims as he spots the muddied, blue astrotech. [You look and smell like you fell into a swamp, got nabbed by a monster that wanted to eat you, got chewed on a bit, and then the thing decided he didn't like how you tasted and peh-too! you got shot across the swamp where you landed in a tree whose vines and branches broke as you fell down. I'm actually honestly, like, surprised you're not muddier! . . . It's just like one of my favorite holo-vids.] The hyperactive Minicon shakes his head. [Anyway. Good luck, dudes!]

And the turquoise Minicon continues on his way.

Random, meanwhile, shakes himself to get over the . . . uh, random display that just happened. "Yeah," he says, somewhat uselessly, "that."

Random pauses as he realizes that the station sounds a lot noisier now since Smokescreen made his announcement. It seems that the message got through.

Random shakes his head to get over that distraction and holds out the hand holding the cable to Makeshift. "Anyway, we should probably get this door open. The rag, Makeshift?"

[random_xtras]

The old bot hands it over mutely, his attention caught by the little hyper bot that's jogging away and his expression showing his gobsmack.

Kia, meanwhile, is busy dusting off Random's shoulder with one hand, confident that she's safe now that she's with him and needing to distract herself from her sadness for the friends who aren't safe right now.

"[Not scared of bugs?]" Murphy asks Arcee.

"What?" She looks down at him with an absent frown, then turns her attention back to the back trail. "No. Of course not."

"[Those aren't scary anyway. Some organics pay a lot of money for them.]"

"[You talk too much,]" grumps Rollbar.

"[Did you just hear that other guy?]"

"[I'm not stuck with that guy.]"

[astrotechmech]

Random distracts himself with the task of cleaning the plug part of his cable while he's got Kia on his back. The juggle is a bit worrying, but he is glad to be with her again.

Random gets the plug cleaned to the point he's pretty sure that it won't damage the computer, and then he plugs it into the computer.

"AHHHH!"

Smokescreen and Liftor jump at the scream of pain from the astrotech as Random grimaces and quickly pulls out the plug and covers the monitor to the computer panel to keep Kia from seeing it. The mech is left leaning against the monitor as he intakes hard.

"What happened?" Smokescreen asks, turning from where he was watching out for more Autotroopers, who seemed to be coming in larger and larger numbers by the minute. "Did the Imperials tamper with it?"

"Guh. Ow," Random grumbles, shaking himself. "Other than change the code, no. This is exactly why you shouldn't trust a strange computer. That hurt." It looks like he wants to rub his forehead, but he keeps his hand over the monitor. "No, the computer cussed at me."

He pauses, seemingly aware that he has probably lost a few people. "And by 'cussed' I mean, I just had a disorienting amount of static and gobbledegook thrown at me. Apparently, she doesn't like all of the banging and shooting and clanging that's been going on around here."

Smokescreen pulls himself away from shooting at the Autotroopers with the gun that he managed to keep a hold on despite everything that demanded use of his hands. "Are you going to be able to convince . . . her to change the codes?"

"Yeah," Random says, sounding offended about the other mech's doubting of his abilities. "I'm just going to have to add a defrag to the list of things to do."

Random takes a deep breath, peeks under his hand at the monitor to make sure it's safe for Kia, and replugs into the computer.

"Ah, much better," Random says, as he begins pressing buttons by the computer monitor. "Much more civil now. She didn't like the Imps crawling around, and she doesn't like things your people are planning."

[Someone's in engineering's making a copy of her if that's something that's upsetting her] Liftor interrupts, sounding exasperated again as he takes cover behind the shield as the Autotrooper fire is absorbed in the shield yellow glow. [But, please, just open the door.]

Random hits a few more buttons before he frowns at something he receives from the computer. "No idea how she learned to communicate to the point of having her own personality, but are you aware that the hyperdrive on the Falcon--"

[It's been fixed,] Liftor interjects before the shield Minicons join him in saying [Just open the door!]

"All right, all right!" Random says, defensively as Smokescreen looks up from the battle to glance bemusedly in the direction of Liftor and the shield Minicons. "Opening the door."

And with a few more button presses, the door is open.

And good thing too. Those Autotroopers aren't exactly giving up.

[random_xtras]

At this point there's a pretty impressive minor explosion from over where the Autotroopers are. This is followed by a squeal of surprise from Kia and a short, startled silence which is broken by a small whistle of amazement.

"[Wow, Rollbar. When you miss you really do it with style.]" Murphy looks at the taller Minicon with admiration and is snorted at.

"[I didn't miss. Get going.]"

[astrotechmech]

"And that's our cue to leave," Smokescreen says, looking relieved at how effective Rollbar's explosion was as he begins to shuffle everyone towards the door.

"Don't need to tell me twice," Random says, unplugging from the computer. He glances back to make sure that Kia isn't going to get shot at when he feels her pulling on something. "Kia?"

Once he feels her let go, he starts moving towards the Falcon.

He doesn't have time to ask her if she's okay as he hears Smokescreen make a remark.

"Hey, the smokescreen is my job."

Random turns back to see the area by the door begin to fill with the steam of the fire extinguishing system. Did Kia do that?

"Go on, go on." Smokescreen waves him off before turning to Liftor. "Get 'er started, Liftor. I'll cover the rear until everyone's on and then join you."

Random, neeeding no additional prodding, jogs into the Falcon. He knows exactly what he needs to do now.

[You better.] Liftor interjects before following after the astrotech and his ward, somewhat surprised at how fast he is moving with her.

[random_xtras]

Arcee's trying to continue the fight till she loses sight of the Imperials in the fog. "What?" She blinks toward Smokescreen's comment and then grumbles as she feels small hands pushing at her legs. There are two sets of them, and since she can hear mewing from up ahead where Random and Kia are, she's pretty sure who's herding her. Her low-voiced complaints go unheeded though, and she's soon aboard the ship.

Makeshift's puffing a bit as he continues to play bot shield for Kia and Random's backs, and he's glad to fall into the nearest seat and pull the straps over himself once they're on the ship. "I'm getting too old for this, Random."

"[Hoo boy!]" notes Murphy from where he's following Random and looking around at a ship where nothing is sticking or hanging out.

Comettor's silence seems to mirror Makeshift's weariness as the red Minicon pushes past Rollbar to go strap himself down on the Minicon couch at the back of the bridge.

[astrotechmech]

Liftor goes straight to the bridge, climbs into the pilot seat, and presses a button hidden from view. A Minicon-sized console slides out from beneath the main controls, and the masked, gray Minicon seems to smile as he uses the revealed console to take care of a lot of the ship boot up and pre-flight checks.

Smokescreen continues to prove shield and cover fire as the others move towards the ship. Once Arcee and the others are safely on, Smokescreen delivers some parting shots as he moves backwards up the ramp. As he does so, the guns close to the ramp on the ship come out of their compartments and add to the fire against the Autotroopers.

"Liftor! Everyone's on. Get us out of here!" Smokescreen yells as he hits the button to lift the ramp.

[We're gone!] Liftor returns as the ship suddenly lifts off of the landing platform, turns, and shoots away from the station.

It should be noted that despite the same speed that is used by both Liftor and Jetfire to execute these actions, Liftor's flying is much smoother than the cowboy bot's.

"Huh. Jetfire's taken pretty good care of it," Smokescreen remarks absently, as he and the shield Minicons--once again back to being in their individual robot forms--walk onto the bridge.

[You should have seen it before we started repairs.] Liftor comments, not looking away from his flying as the shield Minicons try to join Comettor on the bench.

Smokescreen shakes his head before looking through the viewscreen and watching as other ships lift off from other platforms all over the city.

The Imperials did not have any fighter assembled to attack the fleeing ships. . . . Yet.

And Smokescreen prayed that the ships would move into hyperdrive too fast to be pursued.

[We'll have to leave the atmosphere before we can enter hyperdrive,] Liftor says, taking Smokescreen from his thoughts. [Where are we heading?]

Smokescreen looks to see Arcee is on the bridge before looking around at Makeshift and the others, awaiting the answer.