When the mutinous Predacons headed for the stasis pods Einhorn at first wanted to go after them but he quickly decided against it. Even if a fight wouldn't needlessly endanger the ship even more, on his own he wouldn't accomplish anything. Instead he decided to look for a way to help the others Maximals, and with Nauticaa handling communications and Septishock in charge of the thrusters he could think of only one thing. He headed to an empty console and after taking a few seconds to remember the controls began routing as much power to the shields as the ship could spare. "Leave the shields to me."

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Blitzwing remained conscious just long to hear that the ship entered the planet's atmosphere before the statis pod did it's job. He would have no way of knowing if he actually managed to survive until he came back online and that terrified him. Still it was better than being online while his spark shut down and his odds of survival were higher this way.

---

With a groan, Nautica's systems came back online. Disoriented, she shuffled around on all fours as her vision cleared up. finally getting a hold of something that seemed sturdy enough to hold her weight, she pulled herself up, her stabilizers trying to cope in vain with gravity that seemed to be facing in the wrong direction, before she came to a revolutionary conclusion: The room was crooked.

Finally getting enough focus, she realized that she could see daylight through the wall. "Okay, what happened? Ship?" she asked, not having much hope that the computer system survived the ordeal. The silence was her answer. Alright. Stop. Take inventory. I gave us some maneuvering room, and apparently got message to the bridge. The planet we were above was mostly water. I took some potshots at the mutineers, and damn if I can remember if I hit anything. I'm in engineering, and I have no supplies. That seemed to do the trick. Step number one: check if the shipwreck is being flooded.

She carefully shuffled along the wall, trying to peak through the hull breach in the floor to see if the ship landed in water or on solid ground.

Septishock awoke, and only in the act of doing so, realized that he had been temporarily unconscious. Looking around, he confirmed that he was still in the bridge of the ship, so they had at least not burned up upon reentry. Despite the damage that the ship was now reporting, they seemed to have made it mostly in one piece. Checking the scanners, Septishock could see from the readings that lifeforms were highly probable. As spacefarers, Cybertronians had a non-interference protocol in place so they would need to disguise themselves from the local wildlife.

"Scan for suitable organisms and make their beast modes available for everyone in the ship," Septishock ordered the computer before getting up to assess the damage. He scrounged around on the bridge checking for survivors, helping those who could help themselves, and then telling them to take care of those who couldn't. Returning to his console, Septishock made an announcement, "All able-bodied personnel, report to the bridge or to the med bay. Priority is setting up the med bay. The highest-ranking surviving medical personnel is in charge of the med bay."

He turned back to the sensors to check for locations of the ejected stasis pods, which would be their mission to retrieve lest they fall into Predacon hands. But his eye wandered over to the growing library of native creatures, and one in particular caught his attention.

(@Forsythe sorry for the mix up, but I meant for the ship to still be right-side up, so you can still navigate the ship normally)

The ship didn't indicate any further hull breaches, or if the it was taking on water. Instead, It began scanning for lifeforms in a wide sweep- it didn't take long. "Scans indicate diverse, complex organisms; compiling a list of disguise-to-proto-form compatibility. Be advised; initial scans indicate ecological extremes, and hyper-aggressive wild life, including 'Megafauna'. Crew is encouraged to make their choices, and enter the reformatting chamber. Once reforming is complete, the subject is free to emerge."

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The scout shuttle had crashed on an island, somewhere- Someone on the Maximal ship had thought to take shots at them as they fled, and while they weren't exactly blown to smithereens, they were forced to make a crash landing. If he hadn't been on the receiving end, he might have commended the move; WingWraith felt that turned backs were the best targets.

The Predacon rebels all seemed to be largely in tact, and managed to get their systems operating enough to make use of the bio-scans and reformatted. If the Maximals survived their own crash, than taking alternate modes was going to be a good way to hide, and wait for a chance to strike.

Slickback was working through some of the data collected (searching for stasis pods), when he looked over his shoulder and spoke his dial-up chatter to WingWraith.

"What do you mean 'confusing scan results'? Who else could be on this planet??"

Einhorn came too just in time to hear the ship's systems describe the lifeforms on the planet and was more than a little surprised to see that so many others woke up before him. There were more important things to worry about though which also meant he might have to wait until he could choose his new alt-mode. Since Septishock had set himself up as acting leader during the mutiny and still seemed to know what needed to be done Einhorn figured his current course of action was pretty clear "Anything I can help with, boss?"
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After exiting his stasispod Blitzwing walked up to the other Predacons. What he heard Wingwraith say didn't sit well with him, the maximals had already proven tougher then he liked and now there potentially was a third faction on this planet. He briefly wondered if he was safer just abandoning them and acting like he was part of the local fauna after getting his altmode. He quickly decided against it, getting back on their good side was gonna a lot harder then just sticking around and maybe leaving in the future. "Well Wingwraith, are you planning on sharing those scan results or are you going to keep us in the dark?"

---

Well, at least they did not appear to be sinking. Oh, this simple joys in life. Nautica received Septishock's communique through her own radio - It looked like engineering might have lost power, but other parts of the ship were still functional. That could be good, but it could also be bad. Damaged energon cells would of course keep providing power. Until they suddenly blew up and took the ship, and the nearest island with them. She had to get diagnostics up sooner rather than later.

She saw something interesting though. In the sea, two schools of fish seemed to be engaged in what she could only describe as maneuver warfare. One school were eely things with pointy, sword-like jaws. Teh other were bulbous things with what she could only describe as rock formations for armor. The first ones seemed to be attacking the latter, having little luck. Until one of them figured out that heading at the armored fish jaws first and sinking their jaw-blade in between the armor plates was the way to go. Then, the waters turned red as it was discolored by spilled blood.

When the red haze cleared, Nautica's optics widened. That the attacking fish were eating their prey was nothing spectacular. IT was that as they did, they seemed to themselves bulk up and grow rocky armor of their own in the span of a few minutes that made her record the occasion and send it to the scientist for analysis. "You know what? I like that." she smirked, and scanning beams shot out form her eyes, targeting the sleek, rock armored fish. Once the scan finished, she could feel her t-cog working to adjust her shape and internal structure to match her protoform and alternate mode shapes more closely together. Once that was done, she grinned, took a few steps back, and with a running leap jumped out of the hull breach.

"Nautica - Traaansfooooooorm!" she shouted in elation as the armor plates on her back unlocked, her limbs tucked in and her form changed to that of the rockfish. Facing sword-jaw first, she gracefully pierced the surface and got to work. Keeping a good look around for threats, she swam zig-zag across the length of the ship, checking what damage it suffered, before making her way towards the bridge. Shooting out of the water like a blue missile, she transformed mid-air, threaded through a broken bridge window and landed on the bridge, sparks flying form her heels as she skidded to a halt. "Good news and bad news. Good news: The ship is in better shape than I expected. If we can find enough resources, I believe it to be repairable enough to get us home. Bad news: Check you inbox. I've seen something of the local fauna and the little I saw is enough to terrify me. We need to prepare to fight an enemy that will adapt to anything we throw at them." she reported to Septishock.

Septishock turned his gaze away from the "Corpse Stinger" bioscan that the ship computer had provided and looked at Einhorn, remembering him for his initiative and perseverance during the chaos immediately prior to the crash. Almost at the same time, Nautica leapt from the water through a gaping hole in the bridge's hull, presenting herself as having already reformatted herself. Septishock was going to ask them to help with repairs and tending to the wounded but thought better of it.

"Einhorn, choose a suitable disguise and get reformatted. Accompany Nautica and scout out our perimeter. Attempt to locate the following: escape pods, construction material, energy sources, and defensible positions if the ship's current position is too vulnerable," Septishock commanded, "Bring back what you can but prioritize the pods."

Reading up about the dangerous fauna of this world reminded Septishock of a little 'project' he had been working on during his off-hours of the voyage, a nasty little thing that might give him an edge in the inevitable conflict. He'd be sure to incorporate the corrosive search laser into his next design iteration.

One of the other crew stepped forward, "Sir, I'll join them!"

@Forsythe@Duthguy



The scene outside the ship was pleasant enough. The crash scared away a lot of wildlife, so none could be seen, at the moment. Scans indicated it was a large island, but the coastline itself wasn't very wide; one end of the ship was in the water, and the other was in the jungle! in the distance, some kind of rock formation was visible- some cliffsides, a plataeu, and something else, like an obelisk?



Wingwraith scowled at Blitzwing, "Obviously are scanners have been damaged... Probably picking up objects moving in the breeze, for all we can tell... We have no choice but to have a look around, ourselves!"

Bushwhack stepped up, "I will scout the area, sir!"

Strife chimed in, "I'll go with him!"

"Good! Blitzwing, you lead them, the rest of us will hold down the 'fort', and await an accurate report on our surroundings! Capture any stasis pods, if you find them!"



The mountainside where the Predacons landed was rather bleak... Craggy, rough. Not much in the way of trees, the weather was overcast, making it seem dark.

"On it." After hearing his orders to bring in resources and stasispods Einhorn was glad that his new altmode seemed suited for pulling heavy objects, being a heavy built quadruped. He had chosen it mainly because it seemed to suit his fighting style of ramming into opponents, the fact that the creature's horn meant his name was far more appropriate was just a coincidence. Really. "I'm on my way now, Nautica" He nodded towards the volunteer and made his way to Nautica's location.
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Blitzwing quickly regretted his snark as Wingwraith clearly didn't appreciate it and he didn't doubt that as leader of the expedition he would receive all the punishment if the report wasn't accurate enough. At least with two other Predacons joining him he felt reasonably secure that he wouldn't run into any danger. He turned around to face his two new underlings. "Let's get this over with, quickly. Blitzwing transform." It was a shame that he couldn't fly as high as he wanted but he couldn't risk losing track of Strife and Bushwack by accident and besides it was a good chance for him to get used to how his new body moved.

---

"Very well, on me. I swam around and there is nothing of interest in the sea in the near vicinity. If we lost pods over the sea, we will have to go further out, and I am not so keen on that without more swimmers around or knowing what sort of fauna is waiting there, so let's check the island. There is a good chance the pods' navigation system tried to route them there." Nautica noted, heading out the busted window again.

As she climbed up on the hull of the ship, she was starting to notice the finer details of her new form. First of all, her legs seemed to form the tail of her alternate form. As such, the tail fin transformed into her feet, making her basically walk on stilettos. That would be less than ideal, something she had to keep in mind for soft and uneven terrains, like the sandy beach at the edge of the island. Her legs were also a good deal longer than she was used to. Both of those gave her the idea that her kicks were going to be mean though, what with the leverage and sharp point on the foot. She bet she could also run a good deal faster now, assuming she did not lamed herself in the process.

Then there was moving overland in her alt-form. She knew she could hover in any fluid, including air, but she would really have to test her agility before she got into any serious action, the sooner the better. Speaking of, the jungle the front of the ship was buried in would be a nightmare to navigate for her. "So, any of you ever visited any place like this? Because it's going to be dark like the pits under all that growth." she asked her two compatriots, "Finding our own way is going to be a nightmare, let alone any pods."

Though he was not accustomed to a leadership role, Septishock seemed to take to it well enough. His ability to assess the situation and offer solutions appeared to have earned him command of the ship in their time of crisis. As such he ordered the remaining crew to try to repair as much of the ship as possible, focusing first on fortification and defense (he suspected that spaceworthiness was not something that would be achievable any time soon), as well as taking care of the wounded. With the current plan set into motion, Septishock went to his quarters and grabbed his new 'toy', attaching the upgrade to his gun hand before stepping into the reconfiguration chamber. He emerged, covered in curved armor with a lustrous purple sheen, the stinger that was his beast mode's namesake incorporated into his corrosive search laser, while the creature's grasping claws formed an effective weapon on his other arm. He felt ready to take on this strange new world, and any obstacle that would get in the way of his curiosity. Returning to the bridge, Septishock set about trying to get the computer and sensor systems up and running. After all, knowledge is power.