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Warnings flashed first. Structural damage, minor leaks in the process of being self-repaired. Clogs building in the main air intake vents. Internal clock offline, missing too much time to reboot itself automatically. Communications offline – signal interference too great to attempt a connection. No nearby signals to boost from.

All in all, he'd expected worse, after being shoved out of a transport, really.

For a moment, he wondered why it was he couldn't see. There was nothing on the damage list to indicate he'd suffered any sort of trauma to the optics, or anything that would cause a full blackout. A few knocks to the head, if the dents recorded were any estimation. But he should be able to see, at the very least. It wasn't until he lifted his head, pulling it out of the fine morass of sand and rusted-out grit that the reason dawned on him. Of course. He'd been laying on his face. As he pushed himself onto his elbows, his fingers brushed the smooth, cold barrel of a weapon, and jerked back reflexively. He must have held onto it, even in the fall.

The air was thick with the swirls of storming sand and rust. Laying here, he could see where it beat against a piece of jagged metal not five feet from his position, already wearing holes in the damaged material. Rocky outcroppings surrounded him on three sides, the last open to the howling wind. He was lying in a patch of open sand, dotted here and there with smooth, almost polished-looking rocks. Everything was colored in a uniform shade of dull red-brown. He continued looking upward, toward the clouds. They still churned overhead, the storm still well in swing. There was no sign of the sun, or even the sky itself, making the time difficult to judge. Still, he stared, attempting to gauge where exactly he'd ended up landing.

And the thought of landing brought forth a sudden onset of images he never thought he would find disturbing. Faces wreathed in sharp, lurid red flames, standing stark against the smoke of a dying vessel. Lives abruptly snuffed out for no reason he could fathom... one in particular who hadn't needed to do anything so stupidly heroic.

He shoved the thoughts aside, enough to focus on the task at hand. He needed to figure out where he was, first of all, how far from their destination he'd landed, if anyone had survived the attack... what that attack was... A very long list of tasks, when all your frame wanted to do was hunker down and recharge for a while.

Slowly, he levered himself upright, reaching out to grasp a convenient stone in order to do so. He hesitated, then lifted the weapon from where it lay in the sand as well, slipping it into a compartment where it rattled against his tools. Joints popped, panels shifted and shed sand. One of his knees sent out a shower of sparks. Wonderful. Walking was going to be something of a chore, now. Not to mention, any gaps in his exterior paneling would only allow for the rust particles to actually enter his internal workings. A slow, wasting death, should they manage to get into fuel lines. He would need to cover it, as best he could, and get out of the storm.

The bit of metal caught his attention again, and he staggered forward, reaching out to pull it over to him with a grunt of effort. It came free after some work, trailing wires and...

… and spurting out a backed-up flow of energon, the fluid spilling bright and glowing against the dull landscape around it.

Perceptor dropped the panel as if he'd been burned. The wind kicked up, carrying it a few feet from his position as he stood, stunned and silent. He saw it now. The broken panel, and the angle of the rocks around it, had obscured the corpse it was attached to. His hands shook a little, though once he closed them into fists, the tremors ceased. He was not one accustomed to death. In his line of work, the only things to ever “die” were the odd assistant drone when something unstable didn't react the way he intended it to. And even those weren't truly alive. The physical sciences weren't subjects one typically expired from working with.

Seeing a corpse lying there, pale-colored frame broken, battered, the lights all gone out from panels and optics, its spark extinguished to nothing, rattled the scientist.

He stared down at it until his frame began to ache, and the sparks spitting from his knee reminded him he had priorities to consider. The rational part of his processor began to take over, sealing away the horror, the spark-wrenching feeling of fear and shock. The coordinates were briefly marked, stored away for later use – provided, of course, anyone ever managed to make it back out here again without another attack knocking them out of the sky. He limped a few steps way, reaching down to collect the torn piece of paneling again. It took a precious few moments, but, with more effort, he managed to rip it in two – or, rather, he clawed and tugged at it until the weak points separated more or less in the middle.

After a moment or two of thought, he did his best to bend part of it into a pseudo bandage, covering the worst of the hole. He would have to hold it in place as he moved, but it would work until he could get out of the wind. Theoretically, anyway. Those were odds he'd have to take, if he wanted to survive. However... he took the other half, and laid over the corpse's face before he began to hobble away. A gesture of quiet, if not a little hasty, respect.

Backboard deserved that much, if not more.

The storm only seemed to worsen as he marched deeper into the rock formation. The path he followed gradually turned into the floor of a natural canyon, its walls worn smooth and slick from centuries of blasting sand and wind. The canyon walls started low, but abruptly climbed skyward, until they towered over the hobbling scientist, their peaks lost in the howling storm. It would have been the perfect sort of shelter, had the wind not been coming from the canyon's mouth. Now, it was like being stuck in a wind tunnel.

He kept his head down, shoulders hunched and one hand clasped around the makeshift repair patch. His jaw set against the pain. The ever-present wind slammed grit into his back, wedged it up and under various sensitive components. It was, literally, like having yourself detailed by construction equipment. If he didn't find some cover, and soon, there wouldn't be much plating to speak of on his back.

But the canyon walls continued on, as smooth and straight as ever, as if someone had carved the entire landscape with a straight-edge razor. Had circumstances not been what they were, he would have likely enjoyed the sight. What could have caused such a perfectly geometric rock formation? What natural forces were employed, so long ago, to make this?

Occasionally, he paused, trying to bring his internal comm back online. But it was designed for close-range communications – for the interior of the science center, to be more precise. He'd never intended to use it for field-work.

Though, he reasoned, if there were anyone else within range, he should have been able to at least ping their signals. He couldn't even so much as pick up the barest trace of another's comm system from where he limped. A fact which boded very ill for his situation. His tools had survived the fall, which was helpful. Once he found cover, he could, at least, perform a few basic repairs to keep himself on his feet.

And yet, there was a reason nothing lived in the Sea of Rust. Even if he did manage to find shelter, there was the matter of fuel. He'd taken care of his needs before the transport had left Iacon. Provided nothing sprang a leak, he should be safe enough for at least a week or so, running on minimal power. But after that... After that, things were going to become very dire, very quickly.

First, shelter, he reminded himself, pausing to scrape grit out of the hollows around his optics. Then we formulate a strategy.