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fandomweekly2024-07-01 02:04 pm
autobotscoutriella) wrote in fandomweekly2024-07-01 02:04 pm
Entry tags:
[#225] Crisis Response (Transformers)
Theme Prompt: 225 - Alibi
Title: Crisis Response
Fandom: Transformers
Rating/Warnings: T / None
Bonus: No
Word Count: 942
Summary: Elita and Chromia get an early-morning wakeup call on their day off.
Elita snapped awake to someone pounding on the apartment door.
“Elita One! Anyone home?”
“Wha-” Chromia jerked awake, elbowing Elita in the chassis in the process of sitting up. “Frag, what – what time is it?”
Someone pounded on the door again. Elita reset her optics, disentangled her leg from Chromia's, and swung herself upright. “Hang on. Coming!”
Signal Flare stood in the doorway, plating bristling. “What took you so long? Where's your partner?”
“Reporting,” Chromia mumbled. A thud from somewhere behind Elita suggested she'd connected with the doorframe in the process of getting out of the bedroom. “It's our day off, boss.”
“Not anymore.” Signal Flare folded his arms. “There's been an incident. You're back on duty until further notice. Get down to the Senate as soon as possible.”
Elita checked her comm. No lingering messages, not even a ping. “What happened?”
“You'll be briefed on-site.” Signal Flare paused, EM field flaring like he'd meant to say more. “Both of you, hurry.” Before Elita could ask again, he was gone, footsteps thudding in the hall loud enough to wake half the floor.
“Since when d'we get assignments in-person? And from Signal Flare?“ When Elita turned, Chromia looked more alert, optics bright and shoulders straight. “What the frag happened?”
“Guess we'll find out when we get there,” Elita said. “Grab an energon cube before we go. I don't think we're going to get a lunch break.”
The underground guard entrance to the Senate building was blocked off with electronic caution lights, emergency vehicles, and a locked gate. Elita flashed her insignia and access badge to the one standing Enforcer outside, then lingered while Chromia did the same. “What's going on, officer?”
“Nothing I can discuss in public. You're both on the access list, so you'll get the details inside.”
Elita and Chromia exchanged looks. If someone was putting Senate guards on a vetted access list, not just civilians...
The first thing that hit her when she stepped inside was the eerie quiet. Even the eternally squeaking ventilation system had been shut down, leaving the air hot and stale, and there were no announcements filtering down from the Senate floor above or distant murmurs from the monitor rooms. Elita couldn't bring herself to break it by speaking, but alarm prickled down every nerve fiber like static.
::What do you think?:: Chromia apparently didn't feel like breaking the silence either, sending the message as a comm ping instead. ::Assassination attempt, break-in, or alien invasion?::
“Good, you're here.” Wing Saber's voice brought both of them snapping to attention, even from the opposite end of the hall. “Follow me.”
They'd almost reached Central Command when Elita caught the scent, sharp and cold and familiar. It didn't belong here, but there was no mistaking it.
Energon. Living, un-processed, and a Pit of a lot of it.
Beside her, Chromia's vents cycled in a sharp hiss. She'd caught it, too.
Wing Saber motioned them both into the little backup monitor room across the hall from Central Command, shut the door, and flipped the security lockdown switch before speaking. “I'll cut right to the point, mechs. Last night, the senator from Simfur was murdered – in our Central Command room.”
Even braced for something like that, Elita's spark dropped.
“Central Command's access-locked,” she said. Wing Saber nodded.
“Thus, the security precautions.”
Even those precautions might not be enough. Elita ran through a quick headcount - there were over a hundred Senate Guards on duty at any given time. Every one of them had access to Central Command, every one of them knew the fastest routes in and out and the camera blind spots, most of them had access to the security camera footage...
Chromia succinctly summed the whole thing up. “Frag.”
“Indeed,” Wing Saber said dryly. “Perhaps by sheer luck, the two of you are the only available members of the unit we can guarantee had no involvement: your shift ended before the senator arrived, your access badges haven’t been used at any time since, and your access codes haven't connected to any of the unit lines. And your access badges were used at your home last night, and not afterward.”
“In other words, we have an alibi,” Elita said. Chromia’s EM field flared in brief amusement.
::Who knew ‘I’m too tired to go out, let’s stay in and test the replacement headboard on your bunk’ would get us off the hook for murder?::
::Shush. Not in front of Wing Saber.::
“You have an alibi,” Wing Saber continued, blissfully oblivious to the comm message (or choosing to ignore it). “Most of the on-shift unit likely does, too, but until we can sort it out, we have to rely on the few of us whose alibis are already confirmed. The two of you will take the lead on the murder itself. I’ll be working with the Enforcers on the internal investigation. We’ll pull in anyone who can be spared from out-of-city assignments. Understood?”
Apparently this wasn’t the sort of assignment where anyone asked are you up to the task. Elita silently, internally checked her weapons out of sheer instinct.
“Understood,” she said. Chromia echoed it, at her side. “Anything we need to know?”
“Simfur’s local guards are already on the scene – and running their own internal investigation, though good luck getting the details. They are not happy.“
“I wouldn’t be either,” Chromia said. “I’m not happy. C’mon, let’s get going before Simfur gets their tire tracks all over our murder scene.”
She didn’t add and before anyone uses their access to the scene to forge a shiny new alibi. Elita heard it anyway.
“No time like the present. We’re on it, Commander.”
Title: Crisis Response
Fandom: Transformers
Rating/Warnings: T / None
Bonus: No
Word Count: 942
Summary: Elita and Chromia get an early-morning wakeup call on their day off.
Elita snapped awake to someone pounding on the apartment door.
“Elita One! Anyone home?”
“Wha-” Chromia jerked awake, elbowing Elita in the chassis in the process of sitting up. “Frag, what – what time is it?”
Someone pounded on the door again. Elita reset her optics, disentangled her leg from Chromia's, and swung herself upright. “Hang on. Coming!”
Signal Flare stood in the doorway, plating bristling. “What took you so long? Where's your partner?”
“Reporting,” Chromia mumbled. A thud from somewhere behind Elita suggested she'd connected with the doorframe in the process of getting out of the bedroom. “It's our day off, boss.”
“Not anymore.” Signal Flare folded his arms. “There's been an incident. You're back on duty until further notice. Get down to the Senate as soon as possible.”
Elita checked her comm. No lingering messages, not even a ping. “What happened?”
“You'll be briefed on-site.” Signal Flare paused, EM field flaring like he'd meant to say more. “Both of you, hurry.” Before Elita could ask again, he was gone, footsteps thudding in the hall loud enough to wake half the floor.
“Since when d'we get assignments in-person? And from Signal Flare?“ When Elita turned, Chromia looked more alert, optics bright and shoulders straight. “What the frag happened?”
“Guess we'll find out when we get there,” Elita said. “Grab an energon cube before we go. I don't think we're going to get a lunch break.”
The underground guard entrance to the Senate building was blocked off with electronic caution lights, emergency vehicles, and a locked gate. Elita flashed her insignia and access badge to the one standing Enforcer outside, then lingered while Chromia did the same. “What's going on, officer?”
“Nothing I can discuss in public. You're both on the access list, so you'll get the details inside.”
Elita and Chromia exchanged looks. If someone was putting Senate guards on a vetted access list, not just civilians...
The first thing that hit her when she stepped inside was the eerie quiet. Even the eternally squeaking ventilation system had been shut down, leaving the air hot and stale, and there were no announcements filtering down from the Senate floor above or distant murmurs from the monitor rooms. Elita couldn't bring herself to break it by speaking, but alarm prickled down every nerve fiber like static.
::What do you think?:: Chromia apparently didn't feel like breaking the silence either, sending the message as a comm ping instead. ::Assassination attempt, break-in, or alien invasion?::
“Good, you're here.” Wing Saber's voice brought both of them snapping to attention, even from the opposite end of the hall. “Follow me.”
They'd almost reached Central Command when Elita caught the scent, sharp and cold and familiar. It didn't belong here, but there was no mistaking it.
Energon. Living, un-processed, and a Pit of a lot of it.
Beside her, Chromia's vents cycled in a sharp hiss. She'd caught it, too.
Wing Saber motioned them both into the little backup monitor room across the hall from Central Command, shut the door, and flipped the security lockdown switch before speaking. “I'll cut right to the point, mechs. Last night, the senator from Simfur was murdered – in our Central Command room.”
Even braced for something like that, Elita's spark dropped.
“Central Command's access-locked,” she said. Wing Saber nodded.
“Thus, the security precautions.”
Even those precautions might not be enough. Elita ran through a quick headcount - there were over a hundred Senate Guards on duty at any given time. Every one of them had access to Central Command, every one of them knew the fastest routes in and out and the camera blind spots, most of them had access to the security camera footage...
Chromia succinctly summed the whole thing up. “Frag.”
“Indeed,” Wing Saber said dryly. “Perhaps by sheer luck, the two of you are the only available members of the unit we can guarantee had no involvement: your shift ended before the senator arrived, your access badges haven’t been used at any time since, and your access codes haven't connected to any of the unit lines. And your access badges were used at your home last night, and not afterward.”
“In other words, we have an alibi,” Elita said. Chromia’s EM field flared in brief amusement.
::Who knew ‘I’m too tired to go out, let’s stay in and test the replacement headboard on your bunk’ would get us off the hook for murder?::
::Shush. Not in front of Wing Saber.::
“You have an alibi,” Wing Saber continued, blissfully oblivious to the comm message (or choosing to ignore it). “Most of the on-shift unit likely does, too, but until we can sort it out, we have to rely on the few of us whose alibis are already confirmed. The two of you will take the lead on the murder itself. I’ll be working with the Enforcers on the internal investigation. We’ll pull in anyone who can be spared from out-of-city assignments. Understood?”
Apparently this wasn’t the sort of assignment where anyone asked are you up to the task. Elita silently, internally checked her weapons out of sheer instinct.
“Understood,” she said. Chromia echoed it, at her side. “Anything we need to know?”
“Simfur’s local guards are already on the scene – and running their own internal investigation, though good luck getting the details. They are not happy.“
“I wouldn’t be either,” Chromia said. “I’m not happy. C’mon, let’s get going before Simfur gets their tire tracks all over our murder scene.”
She didn’t add and before anyone uses their access to the scene to forge a shiny new alibi. Elita heard it anyway.
“No time like the present. We’re on it, Commander.”
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