Chapter Text
All Decepticons serve a purpose within their glorious cause. Intelligence officers gather necessary information for preparing offensives and missions. Their scientists and doctors research medical and technological advancements for weapons and augmentative procedures. Lieutenants and the Decepticon High Command create strategies and lead soldiers into battle. Megatron leads them in all of their endeavors, whether that be from the Nemesis’ command bridge or from the skies over a battlefield.
Serving the officers at all levels of Command are the Vehicons, the mass produced drones that fulfill all other tedious and unglamorous tasks within the Nemesis (often called Genericons due to being the same color and their frames all being fabricated from the same premade templates). They are ever present in the Decepticon cause, and the most common sight aboard the Nemesis and amidst the battlefields of Earth. Vehicons may vary slightly in size and design depending on their intended purpose, but they all serve the function of furthering the Decepticon cause. They are categorized by their roles, and their serial designations reflect this. They are denoted by their alternate mode (as a flier or a roller), as well as their given role of miner, surveillance, trooper, or intelligence.
VFS-6787 is one such Vehicon. They are a flier, and are tasked with both surveillance and intelligence gathering. They are often sent to survey blank patches of desert and rock for any signs of energon, or scan sprawling city spaces for any traces of hiding Autobots. Their flights end with being called back to base to relay whatever visual and radio information they parse from their surveillance by uploading it to the Nemesis’ main surveillance database. They know they are exceptionally lucky since there are many Vehicons that don’t return from their scouting missions, but the work is repetitive and tedious.
Their optics glaze over when they fly through silent stretches of sand with no sound but the wind and Decepticon radio chatter. They’ve scanned enough cars to know every popular make and model in Carson City, Nevada. But it’s boring information, not what they want to know. They have always been curious, and though they assume that’s part of their core programming, they always want to learn more. They hold no true love for the cause they have been created to further, but it is the only purpose they have. For now, that’s what keeps them flying.
Vehicon scouts are sent out in pairs, but for places with regular human presence solitary flights are necessary. They’ve flown countless solo flights, and they think this one will be no different. When they fly through the space bridge, they are surprised to see that it’s not an overhead view of a metropolis or a long sprawling network of roads. They see a stretch of green and gold surrounding a body of water dotted with white and brown creatures.
When they tune into the human radio waves, they find that they’ve been deposited in an area designated by the humans as “Mirror Lake”. As they circle the area scanning for energon signatures and unidentified life signals, they listen intently to the different sounds on the airwaves. They hear of something called “autumn” making everything change color. They hear humans talk about the coming winter, sweaters, corn, wheat, and a holiday at the end of their month.
They sweep the area quickly while listening to the chatter, before circling back to the lake. After scanning the lake for humans and finding none, they deactivate their cloaking device and drop in altitude. They see their image in the water as they fly to the lake, dark purples and grays reflecting off the surface.
They hear trills of tiny winged creatures that fly away at their sudden appearance. They hear the creatures' song as the tiny beings flee to the trees, and feel the air pressure shift and change as water starts to fall from the sky.
They don’t disconnect from the radio waves as they call for a space bridge transport back to the Nemesis.
They are greeted by a flash of light and warm jets of air as they land back on the Nemesis, fluttering their wings and getting off excess water as they scrub through the recorded footage of the flight.
As they return, one of the intelligence Vehicons handling the space bridge asks how their flight went. VFS-6787 says it was little more than a few good hours of air time and that they prefer it to being cooped up in the Nemesis. As they prepare their surveillance video for their report, they’re surprised that they can say they have a preference of where they want to be. Preference is not part of their programming.
VFS-6787 edits out their flight over the lake before they submit the footage.