"Contact!" yelled Bolter as tracer fire ripped through the ignited air, "Optimus and the others must make it to orbit! Protect the Ark with everything you have!"
The Decepticons were making a bold counter-offensive with hundreds of amassed troops and siege weapons throughout the region surging towards the Arc's launch site, guns and cannons blazing as they quickly overran the external perimeter defenders. It was quite clear what the Decepticons had in mind; sabotage the Autobot's remaining trump card and dooming them to Cybertron's surface without any real means of procuring a reliable energy source to feed their dwindling numbers. And the only thing in this zealous army’s path just so happened to be Turbulence's battalion of foolhardy vets and unfortunate recruits.
Turbulence took to his aerial Alt. Mode, cycling propellers blasting away plumes of dust from underneath him as he took to the smoke filled skies. He was accompanied by Jetwash and Rotor and three took their formation, organizing the Autobot's only fire support team in this sector. Everyone knew their orders well; hold the line and kill anything green or purple. Simple. There was plenty to shoot at. But as the tree gunships made their approach, the skies brightened with flak and ascending rockets to shoot them down. Taking their own individual initiatives, the aerial Autobots engaged in an aggressive series of evasive maneuvers until friendly forces could tally on the attackers.
Being more nimble and faster than his compatriots, Jetwash performed a gutsy immelman away from the fire and planted a precise salvo rockets on a team Decepticon gunners whose concentrated gunfire lead the anti-air defense. Rotor and Turbulence coordinated quickly into the gab of the barrage and strafed the first wave of attackers with neutron and rocket fire, tearing the metallic earth asunder with dust and smoke projecting from the craters as a result. The Autobot defenders cheered as they valiantly pushed the first wave of disarrayed Decepticon invaders back.
For a moment, the three took single-file formation above their earth-born allies as they waited further instructions from the commanding units on the ground, eager to push onto the next round. Then came the loud and mighty roar of a massive engine coming to life behind them and echoing throughout the entire battlefield. Immense dust storms picked as the Ark's thrusters lifted it off from its sizable launch pad. Autobots and Decepticons hunkered down for a brief moment to resist the fierce winds emanating from the rising spacecraft but it was at that point the fighting intensified into utter chaos. Not wanting their prize to escape, the Decepticon force waged an all-or-nothing charge into the Autobot ranks, gunfire once more claiming the skies.
Jetwash was the first to go down as a rocket unexpectedly screamed from out of the haze, connecting and blowing off his left wing. The Autobot desperately tried to maneuver into a glide but the monstrous cloud of particle debris claimed him before Turbulence could make out his squad mate's status. Turbulence and Rotor attempted to dive into the trading of energy discharges for towards their downed comrade but a sudden arrival of Decepticon Seekers screaming out of the sky met the two gunships head-on, poised to take them down. Having the more maneuverable of the vehicle modes, the two Autobots darted out of away and returned fire. Rotor managed to get the lead on the front Decepticon jet and tore it pieces with her X18 Scrapmaker. Turbulence maintained a heavy streamline of neutron bolts on his own target, managing to cripple the fighter's vectoring thrust ports, causing the Decepticon to flip over uncontrollably into the darkened carnage below.
The remaining Seekers aggressively peeled back towards the Autobot flyer's unleashing their own vicious attacks comprised of a swarm of missiles. Turbulence rolled out of the way with the homing projectiles overshooting him. Rotor conducted the same motions but was quickly intercepted by a Seeker's gunfire. Tried as she could, Rotor could not get away from such a close-range flank and was aptly riddled with puncture holes throughout her chassis, causing her to fall lifelessly from the sky.
Enraged by this, Turbulence charged forward after putting down the third Decepticon Seeker, all eight barrels of his neutron assault turret blazing away. The final Seeker easily jinked away from the rush and returned fire, nailing Turbulence's propeller motor. As his Alt. Mode sputtered to maintain speed and altitude, Turbulence continued his foolish charge to which the Seeker acknowledged in kind, hitting the afterburners and raced towards the damaged gunship in hopes of finishing off the Autobot swiftly. Just as the Seeker deployed another missile, Turbulence quickly rolled left and transformed back into his own robotic shape and spread his profile wide. The Decepticon flyer realized too late what Turbulence had in mind and desperately tried to pull away, but the Autobot had already calculated how his opponent would react and latched on to the fighter's airframe. The Decepticon frantically rolled in pleading hopes to shake the Autobot off though Turbulence persisted with his tight grip on the Seeker, igniting his Energon Tomahawk and once the opportunity made itself know, swung fast and seared the fighter's "cockpit" off and conveniently the Decepticon's head within that section as well. With no actual brain to command the simulated vehicle any longer, the decapitated Seeker stumbled out of the air with Turbulence hanging on, helplessly gliding the aerodynamic body into a glide.
The last thing Turbulence saw was being engulfed in foggy black before he supposedly collided with the earth, disconnecting all awareness from reality.
===
"This is Demolitions expert Pri...--bzzt--...casting from Iacon. If there is anyone out...--bzzt--... to rebuild Cybertron with the scraps our leaders left...--bzzt--...the Ark hangar...--bzzt--..."Turbulence slowly came to upon the semi-garbled message echoing throughout his comm channels. He naturally grunted as his head rose from the metallic dust, confused and disoriented and almost unsure where he was. The dazed Autobot scanned his surroundings but only made out dunes of dust and scrap and dismembered Cybertronians littered throughout the desert-like landscape. Strange. Turbulence recalled there being a city or what was left of one anyway. What remained apparently were only a few notable structures protruding from the dunes and debris.
Taking his time and giving ease to his servos, Turbulence eventual stood up from the dust around his feet. His IFF’s sensors pinged repeatedly for any automated responses; hopefully anyone alive that he knew would also be pinging as well. Unfortunately no one within several hundred kilometers was replying back. It seemed that he was the only bot here still online.
"This is Demolitions expert Prism broadcasting from Iacon. If there is anyone out there who wants to rebuild Cybertron with the scraps our leaders left us, the doors are open, and report in the Ark hangar as soon as possible." His comms eventually worked out the interference with the broadcasted message and replayed what was audibly complete and recognizable. The sender of the message had called themselves Prism. Prism…
“Prism…” Turbulence said aloud to himself, hoping that saying the name would mean anything.
Upon saying it a few more times, he finally recalled an officer by that very name that Optimus Prime had put in charge while he was off world in search of a more reliable and obtainable source of Energon. With any luck, she would know what’s going on and fill him in on the current status of the war. If there was still a war in that regard; based on his surroundings, he surmised that he had been offline for more than a century.
Now with a bearing on the broadcast point of where the message originated from, Turbulence reverted to his gunship form and slowly spooled-up his propellers, remembering the damage they sustained during the battle prior before reactivating. Turbulence could already confirm damage readouts begging him to take it easy. No promises. After his aerodynamic blades had reached their rotation peak with dust being pushed aside from the torrenting wind, Turbulence slowly lifted from the ground and made his way to direction of the launch site, keeping the weighing guilt of leaving his fallen compatriots in check the best he could.
===
Turbulence was beginning to regret not salvaging any of the bodies for any useful equipment. His readouts constantly bombarded him with alerts of his Transformation Cog heating up to undesirable temperatures; he was sure it was the damage from before getting worse as time went by. Surprisingly in fact was how far out of the defense perimeter the battle had taken him as he reevaluated his ETA to the launch pad as an additional ten minutes. Already he could feel the heat of mechanical friction emanating from his insides; there was not much time left.
“Turbulence to Ark Hanger facility. Does anyone read?” he called out over his comms, hoping Prism or someone down there would be able to pick up his transmission if it wasn’t garbled.
Surely enough, his rotation motor from before was beginning to act up again, this time giving off small plumes of black smoke, indicating a mechanical failure was about to occur. This was becoming very bad as he had yet to confirm any visual on the Hanger. Hoping to add less strain to his Alt. Mode’s functions, he reduced his speed and altitude, no doubt increasing the time frame but in the end would be producing a less risky flight.
Eventually, the main hanger finally came into view but at the same time, so did his rotation motor give out with a loud bang. Turbulence’s vehicle mode jerked violently and spun out of control, twirling aimlessly though the air. The Autobot flyer frantically counter-rotated the best he could to maintain at least a controllable decent, readying himself for the eventual crash landing.
Once he confirmed he was close enough to the ground, Turbulence opted out of his gunship profile and back into his own form. Quickly gaining on the sixteen meters beneath his feet, he landed into the ground hard and stumbled over into a brief skid before friction halted him. Shaky from the impact, Turbulence rose up, catching himself more than once from falling over. Regaining his situational awareness, he then caught glimpse of several Cybertronians possibly less than a mile apart from him, no doubt looking at him and more than likely we witnessed of his crash and burn.
“A-any chance of a-Whoa!” he had only waved at them briefly until he realized his Alt. Mode’s rotation motor had actually caught fire! Turbulence grunted as he frantically tried to pad it down.
